Letting go the Strings of Servitude October 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, BarCamp, Blogging, bloggingfringe, Career, CoLab, Coworking, Drupal, floridacreatives, Liberatr, Orlando, OrlandoScene, PopSci, Site News, Social Media Events, Teaching, Trends, Video , trackback
That’s right, folks, I quit my job at Bonnier. No more PopSci, no more corporate life.
Somehow I thought our friend Jonathan (above) working his VCRs and television sets helped get that message across. As Pandos, instead of fighting against modern technology, just letting a couple of simple magnetic tapes play serves as a more entertaining picture than a single curated stream.
My life working at Bonnier had become a lifestyle – long days (and nights), spending all day in the same place doing the same thing. I couldn’t even take 7 months of that.
So now what?
I’ve got a couple of freelance things lined up that should bring in the next month’s income alright, but I don’t want another hourly job. Here are some ways I plan on keeping myself distracted:
- Drupal Easy – this is the home for some (free) Drupal advice, and hopefully some (paid) screencasts, eBooks and tutorials. I will be doing a Drupal conference circuit in the next few months to connect with folks who are looking for training more than straight-up work. I hope I am a good provider.
- Orlando Scene TV – I still have yet to see a project emerge that achieves the goals of this videoblog. The more I think about it, the more it needs to be a one-on-one account of some fun stuff. We were trying to bring more of a TV correspondent feel to the show, but that takes work, and this is supposed to be about fun! Maintaining this channel gives a place for the Blogging Fringe videos and Orlando Puppet Festival content to go, and video is so engaging, measurable and portable — I really love doing this.
- Florida Creatives Podcast – I have been meeting some great people who need to get pulled in to this community, and one of the best ways to get them to care about you is by doing the completely selfless thing and asking them about themselves for half an hour, and sharing the conversation with the world on a well-trafficked web site. The happy hours will certainly continue.
- Florida Creative Summit – the idea here is to do something like BarCamp, but that covers more than just geekery – I am talking to some folks about how to pull this off right now, most of that goes down at Florida Creatives Happy Hour. This is the whole point of Florida Creatives coming to be in the first place.
- Coworking Orlando and our first coworking space in Orlando, CoLab – Coworking Teusdays are still going strong after some 8 months — also, I have already paid my $49 for use of a desk at CoLab in November — I’m not sure whether I will be full-time or part-time there in the future, but I know I want to be present for the birth of the formal coworking movement in Orlando. This is something I’ve been talking about for years, and now it’s downtown and affordable. Couple that with all the communities looking for useful consistent space, and the need for something like this is even greater. This probably deserves a separate blog post…
- Oh so many more things… like getting other Florida Creatives chapters going in other cities, like Brevard, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tampa, South Florida — helping Petentials get to a happy place — doing a joint event with Doterati — creating a DIY community, a graphics hackers community, a podcasting community, a blogging community, an independent microblogging site, and lots of things I can’t think of just now.
To all my Bonnier peoples, I will keep in touch. Let’s do lunch! Blackwater BBQ?
To everyone else, it’s good to be back!
Comments
It’s been great working with you Ryan. Thanks for inviting me to all those BarCamp events. They can’t keep you in the box forever!! We’ll definitely stay in touch.
BTW, I am not sure about the Blackwater BBW — we can Seito sushi it up though.
Ryan, it saddened me that your desk was empty when I returned from vacation, but I understand completely. Stay happy and healthy, and here’s looking to your next great distraction
So is it Ryan Price vs. The Media once more? Thanks for opening up the nerd scene to me, and we’ll keep in touch. I’m down for some El Potro for lunch.
Ryan,
Best wishes to you.
I suffer from the same (can’t really think of the best word, please excuse me), insatisficatations (if you will?) that you seem to be expressing here.
Hope to catch up with you soon.
Adam
Oh man …what about my brownies!?!? I can’t imagine those upcoming mid afternoon coffee breaks without you!! I’ll miss you my friend!
Thanks all for your sentiments. I know we will not lose touch, even if we don’t get to see each other every day.
Uh, can I have your old job? I just quit a contract doing hack custom Miva Merchant installs based on ancient 1999 HTML that was more than my patience could bear – especially when I just felt like telling clients “Just use Magento Commerce or Ubercart and quit paying thousands of dollars for custom Miva modules that barely function.” Yeah, the pains of knowing the horrible truth.
Still, I admire your independence, even though with unemployment at 12% in some areas of the country, you might want to go back on Monday and say, “What? Quit? Who me? C’mon guys… you know me… It was just an October Surprise!”… ha ha.
But, seriously, can I have your old job? I don’t have 1/10th the Drupal knowledge you do, but I’m a quick learner. I’ve got “the book”. Does that count? And I don’t have a college degree, but you did, and look what good it did for them. So, I think I have an edge there.
Of course, I’m only kidding. Sort of. Okay, not really.
Although if your friend Jonathan needs an extra salesman that looks fun too… Outdoors. Adventurous. Wheelin’ and Dealin’.
BTW, I should probably also mention that I see Drupal-related jobs daily on oDesk so if you want to stay a remote worker and keep bringing in the bucks, I can’t imagine you’d have any difficulty bidding and winning a number of projects on oDesk, especially with your background.
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