Thursday, December 18, 2008

MICHIGAN JOB CLUB


Have been bouncing this idea around for a while, now is the time to make it happen. The employment situation is challenging to say the least. Below is an outline of thoughts and ideas regarding the formation of the Michigan Job Club.

A related post from November: "MICHIGAN IS HURTING

If you or someone you know may be interested... post a reply to this post or find my contact information on Twitter here.

Your IDEAS and comments are appreciated.

To: YOUR NAME HERE
From: David Damore
Subject: Michigan Job Club - 5 people [or more]
Date: 12/15/2008

Creation of a job club in SE Michigan... Metro Detroit... or anywhere in the state. Michigan has the highest unemployment in the nation at 9.3% [tied with Rhode Island]. The employment situation looks to get worse in Michigan before it gets better. 

Now is the time to take action. Building skills, knowledge and developing new talents. In doing so it is important to leverage these new skills to become, what Peter Drucker would call a knowledge worker. Knowledge is the way of the future. Those with it and using it will thrive as part of the US labor force. Flexibility is key and knowledge workers will be uniquely suited to benefit from opportunities as they arise. 

Mission: Create a small organization of...
  • unemployed
  • recent graduates
  • reentering the job force
  • Career transition [Boomer, new career/direction]
  • Etc...

To: Leverage knowledge creation and social communication to advance for oneself and for society.

How: Using social networks and technology to...    
  • Communicate
  • Share technology
  • Support
  • Encourage
  • Inspire
  • Brainstorm
  • Etc...

When: Meet formally for a conference call once every 2 weeks. Day and time are open for discussion. Time that works for all members will be the time we do. Time could be from 5 am to 1 am or so. Members can meet anytime using any of technologies listed below.

Tools: Technology
  • Email
  • Phone
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Skype
  • Other IM clients... Google Talk, AIM [AOL Instant Messenger], Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger
  • Talk Shoe and BlogTalkRadio are also possibilities.
  • Google Docs
  • Microsoft Office
  • EtherPad "EtherPad is a web-based collaborative real-time editor, allowing up to eight people to edit a text document at the same time" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etherpad

1 comment:

Mike Driehorst said...

Great idea, David.

In the few months I've been out, I'm humbled by others who have offered to help me one way or another, and I've tried to pay it forward when I can. In today's world, it's not only what you know, but WHO you know. So, if anyone can benefit from this club, it'll be worth it.

FWIW, in my most recent TalentZoo column (http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php?articleID=1369), I posted some tips for job searching (and others have done so there as well).
-Mike