UGC - it's nice!

User Generated Content is the future.  In technology today, and in the future, user generated content controls the web.  User generated content can vary from YouTube videos about a cat to widgets created for your desktop on Leopard, OS X on a Mac.

One of the coolest new things to come out of user generated content is the careers of many successful people.   One of the more noticeable succesors from user generated content is Andy Samberg from Saturday Night Live.  Andy Samberg was back home in California making funny videos with his friends and then posted the videos online - user generated content.  After becoming wildly successful on the internet, he was picked up my NBC to do Saturday Night Live... that is pretty awesome.  No resume needed, just his user generated content he did for fun.

Another cool success story comes from a New York college student who loved Apple.  As a result, he took all the videos showing the iPod Touch and edited them together into a new 30 second commercial... his version.  He posted the video on the famous user generated content site, YouTube, and let it blossom.  Like with Andy's videos, his commercial became extremely popular.  Apple took note, and then flew the student out to California to work with them on the new iPod Touch  commercial.  The commercial was virtually identical to that of the student's.  Pretty cool stuff.

User Generated Content is the wave of the future, and it is the hot topic of the present.  The ability the create your own content at your home and then let the world see it with extreme ease is the future of media and technology for years and years to come.

A New Topic... Blogs!

Well, I am happy to say I have broadened my horizons and decided to talk about something completely new... something completely revolutionary and exciting... something I think nobody has heard about ever before... 

...blogs.

That was way to anti-climactic. Anyway, this week I read up on blogs as a representative medium of a person similar to that of a resume.  The only difference, however, is that it isn't a resume, and unless you are going into a job as a blogger, it shouldn't be a resume. (Here is a link to an article on this topic: Linky)  So, that is the brunt of my opinion.  However, this is not to say that blogs could not or should not be an adjunct to a person's resume, as if they have a blog, it is: a) open to the public, and b) shows a little more personality than a boring page long resume.  I would agree that when acting as an adjunct to a typical resume, blogs can show the true personality, or essence, of a candidate.  Because blogs are a space for free thought, you can understand how their mind works (thought processes regarding issues) and their level of confidence.  If somebody is a hesitant writer constantly going back on what they said to cover their tracks and seems too political, you might realize that this candidate doesn't have the confidence to make a good junior executive.  He needs to be strong and steadfast (that was a little redundant, perhaps), and show that he sticks to his guns.   

One of the good points of the article (which lists why blogs are a resume) is that blogs "are an archive."  I very much agree with this point.  In a similar sense to the words above, a potential employer can see the history of the way you act, in type form.  When you get comments, do you take constructive criticism well, or do you lash out in a cowardly manner.  These are all things to think about when you are posting blogs as well as reading them.

So, blogs as resume? Not really... I hope not at least.  Blogs as an adjunct to a resume to show the persons true nature (at least what they portray online)?  Sure.

At the end of the day, Blogs are Nice, Yay!