Catch-up blogging

May 23, 2007

So much to report, so I’ll put it all together.

A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with Terrell Russell, a co-founder of claimID and a doctoral student at SILS. He’s researching how expertise might be identified and amplified through online social networks, and he’s inspired me to find a way to give my family, friends and blog readers a way to tell me what I know — I already have my resume online to tell what I think I know and can do, but look for a form and a invitation to review me, coming soon.

My friend and fellow NC Science Blogging Conference organizer Bora Zivkovic is benefitting from a similar, ad hoc experiment: when he found out about a cool job at PLoS, he wrote a post titled I Want This Job!. He tells me that the many adoring comments that his readers posted to that entry made quite an impression with PLoS. I hope Bora will be able to write soon about how his blogging led to a new job. UPDATE: Bora got the job!

Meanwhile, another Chapel Hill friend and blogger, Ruby Sinreich, has announced through her blog that she’s on the job market.

Look for more and more stories about how and why blogging is good for getting a new job. Here are just two I came across this week: at Darowski, Adam Darowski writes “The blog is the new resume”, and Joshua Porter at Bokardo amplifies the idea.

Yesterday, in between my annual physical exam (I’m healthy as a horse, mom!) and tracking down a few blogging opportunities of my own, I got a call from my college buddy Mark Schreiner, who is chasing leads on a story about corruption in the state legislature. A couple of hours later, another college buddy, Jim Parker, called. He’s working on an essay about an experience he had in India last year, and I hope he posts it soon, because it reminded me to celebrate the fact that Malia and Anna love to play in the morning, regardless of how rushed we may be to get to schools and work.

Earlier, I left a message with yet another college friend to check on her pregnancy, but tonight when I got home, there was a message in my inbox that Bridget now has a son to go with her three darling daughters. Congrats to Bridget and Dennis.

And another friend from John Carroll University — Stephan and I met for lunch last week at Foster’s Market in Durham, midway between his intense job as V.P. of a manufacturing company and my UNC work. We talked about the importance of mentorship, and how good supervisors groom their replacements. Stephan mentioned that at a training workshop he once attended, the instructors led an exercise that involved writing down all the important stages in one’s life and noting the individuals who had had an impact, good or bad, during those stages. That made me remember a key incident when I was a young editor at Northern Ohio LIVE, where one day I felt betrayed by my mentors, but when they saw me on the verge of tears, they sat down and gave me the best three-hour editing tutorial of my life.

Last night, Sara Foster of Foster’s Market was one of the 40 chefs and restaurateurs who gathered out at Chapel Hill Creamery for the Farm-to-Fork picnic. I had two hot-and-tired girls in tow, and chalk up my faux paux of not recognizing the esteemed Ben Barker of Magnolia Grill when he served me a delicious plate of pulled pork barbecue. See my other pictures from that event including one of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini speaking to us in Italian. (I learned a new word, convivium, from Lantern Restaurant chef Andrea Reusing, who is the Slow Food convivium area leader in these parts.)

Badi Bradley of 3CUPS and Kirk Ross of the Carrboro Citizen were at the picnic, too, and I bent their ears about the food blogging event with Michael Ruhlman that, with luck, I can announce and begin planning by the end of the week.

Last night’s event was extraordinary — the area’s best chef’s and organic farmers and hungry supporters of local eating all together in a cow pasture on a warm Spring night.

Did I mention my dream of having a goat farm and making my own cheese?

Anton Zuiker ☄