The Best of Sacramento

Most of the Flash animations I’ve created have been purely for fun, although ostensibly I made each of them to learn some particular aspect of Flash technology. After having studied Flash fairly intensively for 6 months, I posted them to my online portfolio, and then began searching for Flash jobs. What I found was that a sense of humor has very little place in the increasingly money-driven world of Flash development.

Which brings me to the subject of this article. I realized that I was limiting my self-marketing options by not creating and posting examples of strictly commercial Flash, such as banner ads and web pages. After all, that’s where the money is. But what could I use for inspiration in this endeavor? What could I advertise through the magic of Flash? How about Sacramento?

So what are Sacramento’s good points? Perhaps the most common way of answering this kind of question is the familiar “10 best restaurants” or “5 top hair stylists” – such commercial lists abound. So instead I’ll just concentrate on two things free to the general public: The Sacramento Public Library and the American River Parkway.

If you read as much and as often as you can, the Sacramento Public Library is the place for you. It used to be the case that in order to get rare, technical, out-of-print, or scholarly books, you’d have to get library privileges from your local university. But now that the Sacramento Library participates in LINK+, you have access to almost any book. LINK+ is a networked catalog of over 5 million books from participating libraries in California and Nevada, such as the San Francisco and Berkeley Public Libraries. This service is the answer to a reader’s prayers.

Staying in the forefront of the digital revolution, the Sacramento Public Library also offers free computer use and Internet access, online catalog search and requests, online technology training classes, online employment resources including live interview coaching, digital book downloads, live chat with a librarian or a tutor, and even texting a librarian!

The Sacramento Public Library also helps build a sense of community. There are ice cream socials, the “One Book Sacramento: Connecting Our Communities” project, baby and toddler play groups, family game nights, movie matinees, and a total of 29 safe and welcoming locations for Sacramentans to connect year-round.

When you put your book down and want a breath of fresh air, the American River Parkway offers a wealth of outdoor pleasures. You can walk, jog, skate, bike, or launch your boat along 23 miles of trails running beside the American River from Beals Point in Folsom to Old Sacramento.

On any given day you may see turkeys, jack rabbits, hawks, ducks, geese, turtles, quail, a solitary coyote running along the river, or even a family of river otters slowly swimming past – a true mood elevator. As you wander through oak groves, deer grass and coyote bush, you’ll get a better perspective on life – in particular, life in Sacramento.

Click here to view my American River Parkway Flash advertisement.

Getting Hired in the Internet Age

As digital technology becomes more fully integrated into daily life, the Internet is powerfully impacting the way Americans search for jobs, as well as the way applicants are evaluated for employment.

In pre-Internet days, applicants learned about openings from job boards at specific locations, for example, their college placement office or the lobby of a state agency. Applicants had to call, write to, or visit many different locations to apply for jobs, making for an extremely time-consuming and cumbersome process. The positive side to the physical job search was the possibility of actual contact with an employer. Even if all the applicant did was call a prospective employer and ask if they were hiring, or drop off a resume, there was the chance of making a positive impression on someone in office and perhaps getting an interview.

The Internet offers a very different experience. A job applicant can search for jobs from the comfort of his or her own home. It’s easy to google a corporation to learn about company culture and current openings, or find jobs through aggregate web sites such as Indeed or SimplyHired. Although going through the registration process with prospective employers can be tedious, with multiple log-ins, passwords, and profiles to manage, the experience of applying for a job without leaving the convenience of your home can be encouraging. However, there’s the danger of a deceptive feeling of accomplishment that can make a job seeker slack off – after all, it’s simple to visit 5 or 10 sites a day, fill out some web application forms, and sit back with a false sense of well-being. But once you realize that the average applicant will receive perhaps one response for every 10 web forms filled out or emails sent, despair can set in.

Don’t panic. Here are some pointers to make the digital world work in favor of your job search.

• Create a web presence using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. As more and more employers use these sites to screen prospective employees, it’s important to identify yourself as a participator in today’s world.


• Be aware of the public nature of your postings on social networking sites, and make a positive web presence. This goes beyond just making sure you have no potentially offensive material posted on your profile. Take advantage of the opportunity to present yourself as intelligent and articulate.


• Join business oriented social networking groups such as LinkedIn. This is a natural extension of business and personal contacts to the web, and allows employers to get a quick and positive idea of you.


• Refine your resume so that information can be correctly parsed for the employer’s database. This will save you the time and effort of having to clean up information fields before submitting your application on-line.


• Surf the web to learn about a company before writing and submitting your cover letter. A relevant, targeted cover letter may be your best shot at getting the job you’re after.

My Family Business

Some years ago, my sister and I attempted to start a business, selling tea and coffee gift baskets online through Amazon. This was not a successful venture, monetarily speaking. But looking back at the project notes, product photos, and web pages, I feel something suspiciously like pride.

Originally our motivation had been to provide the highest quality tea, coffee, and treats at a reasonable price, beautifully packaged and promptly delivered, that would be a joy to open and taste. This would be a concrete example of "providing a service," since the sender's love and kindness would definitely be communicated through our products. In addition, it would give my sister and I a chance to work together.

We carefully chose the ideal tea (Taylors of Harrogate), chocolate, and cookies, selected quality packaging materials, located distributors, purchased insurance, and created our account with Amazon. We soon realized, however, that small-time business people such as ourselves would always be undercut by large companies selling lower quality products.

After a few months we shut the business down. But when I look at the photos we took of our gifts, it all comes back to me and I'm glad we made the attempt. I learned a lot about purchasing goods and working with distributors, about maintaining a business web site, and about customer relations. And we got to finish all of the left over tea, cookies, and chocolate!