A Simple Truth about Image

Are you a valuable human resource or a self promoting celebrity?   A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Allison M. Vaillancourt reminds us that, as the sole proprietor of our own career, we need to focus on how we go about marketing ourselves. Vaillancourt makes 5 sound points that we all should consider.

  1.  First, do no harm. 
  2.  Be focused.
  3.  Share your ideas as much as possible
  4.  Be appropriately visible, but not perpetually available.
  5.  Let others promote you.

How do you promote your business?   Are you a resource or a self promoting celebrity?

Where the jobs are

There are many different reasons to set up a business or a career where one does. To be close to suppliers, raw materials, customers, transportation, etc. are some of the most common reasons. In the complex world of international commerce, these choices are even more critical. The commitment to locate is not a short term decision, despite the internet. Cost advantages in one sphere may be suddenly over turned by an environmental, technological, economic, social or political change in another.

Careers are the same way. Different skill sets are need for different industries as we all know. Steel workers concentrated around the big steel plants in the Mid-west and Great Lakes, oil workers around Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, actors in California and New York. Part of any sole/soul proprietor's business and/or career planning should include a realistic appraisal of the occupational distribution the area where you plan to settle. One place to turn for useful information is the U S Department of Labor's Mapping out a career: An analysis of geographic concentration of occupations

In a nutshell:

What you do for a living and where you live have a lot to do with each other. Explore the connection between occupation and location