Ok been reading way too much about AI lately and helping folks do everything from buy a computer to getting a summer job. Some meta rules. And then some rules.
Metarules
Ok here are some tips. First meta rules (an ode to Zombieland):
- Have someone who has done it before. Doesn’t matter if they know 1% more they know 1% more than you.
- Everything is always written down in a book. So first thing is to read the best book on the topic.
- It’s a competitive world so how are you different. Find a category where you can be the best.
- Clone and copy relentlessly. Find something you like and make your stuff look the same.
- Write the few rules down otherwise you will forget! (Hey that’s why this blog exists).
So here are some real world examples of the “geeks are winning” strategies:
Getting a summer job
So how does this apply to getting say a summer job.
- Figure out who got the job you and go talk with them. It’s incredible how people love to help others if you just ask.
- There quite a few good blogs and Amazon search is a tremendous way to find them. But Sweaty Palms is a great book. And What color is your parachute but in general being interested in something you actually care about is a good thing. Trying to be interested in what you think you should do doesn’t work super well. Passion rules 😉
- Differentiation is not about wishing a company would want you, but is about figuring out what a company wants and then well giving it to them. This part is the hardest part but in general having rare skills is way better than being generic.
- Find a resume you like. Make yours looks like it. There’s nothing like practice. Someone always has a better answer for a question. I just loved 100 questions interviewers ask.
Learning how to build a bicycle
I really did do this a long time ago.
- Find a mentor. In this case, I had a good friend who was a major bike hound who told me how to get parts and things
- Books. Zen and the art of bicycle maintenance was a god send. It tells you exactly how to do everything to build up an old style bike. This was before the era of custom cranks and so forth
- Diffrentiation. Building a K-mart bike doesn’t make much sense, back then though it was all about carbon fiber. So I’m proud to say that 20 years ago, I built from ebay parts and mail order (back when the Euro was cheap), a 12.5 pound bike that was all carbon fiber with carbon-kevlar spokes. Still using it today.
- The part build I was after was the Colnago and got pretty close.
- See tongfamily.com for this!
