One of the most stressful things in life for me is the job hunt. I don't enjoy wrtiting cover letters and going to interviews. One of the books I got for Christmas, Purple Cow by Seth Godin, has some advice for making your job hunt easier:
Be remarkable. Do an outrageous job. Work on high-profile projects.
Think about Dave Sperling of Dave's ESL Cafe fame. His teaching qualifications are pretty standard but he gets more speaking invitations than me. He did something remarkable.
I do a lot of academic things; I make presentations, publish papers, faciliatate the KOTESOL CALL SIG, have a Masters. I used to think that made me special, but that's what professors are supposed to do. It's expected.
Maybe what I really need is for ESL go to take off. Or this blog of course...
Posted by James Trotta at January 10, 2005 4:40 PMMe again,
Purple Cow resurfaces! One of my all-time favorite "mom/teacher" books is called Purple Cow (my decades-long penpal from Great Britain mailed it to me about 20 years ago!)... and another book I've used a bit for ESL is Purple Cows and Potato Chips --
So, what is it with Purple Cows? Whose concept was/is this? Sounds like an entertaining research project for a whacky rainy day!
Holly
Purple Cow is a book about marketing strategy - make your product unique so people talk about it. The same can be applied to a career. Do something that no one else has done (assuming it's a good thing)and you are probably all set.
Posted by: James Trotta at February 3, 2005 2:54 AMESL blog is one of many Blogs for learning English & teaching English. Translation services information.