Many years ago, in my childhood, I had an obsession with our family computer. The son of an IBMer, I never knew life without a computer, despite being born in the early 1980's. Fascination took hold while playing simple MS-DOS based games like King's Quest V, Reader Rabbit, and Treasure Mountain. I cannot place what exactly struck my fancy, but I have been a tech head ever since.
In middle school, with the help of dear old dad, I built a computer, tinkering around with the specs and actually installing some of the hardware ourselves. Of course, the most challenging part was installing all of the firmware on 3.5" floppies, through the a:/ drive. Once I made it to high school, I used my lawn mowing money to buy a Toshiba e755 Pocket PC, one of the first with WiFi. I actually traveled to the local coffee shop just to use the internet because we did not have a wireless router. This first personal purchase led me toward a more robust gadget obsession...
The build up
Of course, dropping $550 on a Pocket PC was quite an investment at age 17, but there were no other life obligations stealing my side-job cash flow. Then, I needed a little keyboard, which I purchased from Belkin. It was actually my first Amazon item. Heading into college, I convinced my dad to splurge on what they called a media PC laptop, argued to be a desktop replacement; it weighed 9.8lbs with a 17" screen. This ball and chain laptop helped convince me to go with a MacBook Pro upon graduation, starting my Macintosh conversion.
Through college and graduate school, I spent as many Sundays browsing the shelves of Best Buy as possible, looking for the newest thing, checking on hardware specs, and lusting after accessories. I even landed a three month job at Best Buy between my two years of graduate school, hoping to make enough to pay rent and buy a couple of items with my nice discount.
I really began reading tech blogs in 2008, when I jailbroke the iPod Touch 1st generation. It was actually with the help of iDownloadBlog that I taught myself the ins-and-outs of the jailbreak community. Jailbreaking was not as mainstream at the time and the click-and-wait jailbreaks were uncommon. Of course, I had always read computer magazines and similar items growing up, but with easier access to the internet, blogs became my main source of education.
My last semester in graduate school, I could finally afford to buy an iPhone. More importantly, iPhone came to Verizon. Waking up at 3:00AM, the first time of many, I frantically clicked through the order screens, ensuring I was one of the first to get one of the coveted CDMA versions. I was hooked.
Reading more and more, I began to wonder how I could give back to the community. I loved my MacBook Pro and iPhone, read all the time, and had a decent background in writing. With two writing intensive degrees, why not start sharing some of what I gathered from my internet studies?
Blogging
I began blogging for MacTrast in August of 2011. I reached out to them with a few sample posts and was immediately added to the staff. As an app reviewer, at first, I reviewed any apps that we managed to come across. I quickly added hardware reviews and wallpapers. After writing for MacTrast for almost a full year, I approached iDownloadBlog with a solid portfolio of curated articles and two writing intensive degrees, both undergraduate and graduate.
Taking the job with iDownloadBlog in July 2012, I became the hardware review editor, with a few apps on the side. As dedicated readers know, that means I test iOS, sometimes Mac, accessories that range from cases to bluetooth speakers. It is the best job I can ever imagine. Working with all walks of accessory makers, from extremely popular to Kickstarter projects, I play with hardware items on a daily basis. I get to play for pay.
All the trips to Best Buy were not in vain. Knowing the landscape and marketplace helped me make contacts in the industry. Obviously, writing for iDownloadBlog helps credibility as our site receives a very solid amount of month page views. A portfolio of backlogged articles adds to the digital resume, as well.
My secret day job
It should come as no surprise, play for pay jobs do not pay the bills. On iDB and through twitter @jim_gresham, I intentionally leave my day job out of conversations. This is not intended as a lie, but rather an intentional omission to my digital lifestyle. However, it is the combination of my iDownloadBlogging and secret day job that landed me the opportunity to work for a Palo Alto startup.
Since earning my undergraduate degree, I have worked in higher education. Overseeing student organizations, I work directly with motivated students who plan, program, and execute campus events. My most recent role served as campus advisor to the largest student-led homecoming celebration in the country, with approximately 42 events that span across only six days. Marketing, advertising, and scheduling such a monster project was extremely difficult.
Weighing on my tech background and skills picked up by blogging, I infused campus homecoming with technology. It is shocking how easily an iOS app can change the outcome of an event. Over the past two fall semesters, I spent countless hours helping to develop and launch a campus event app, solely for Homecoming. Thankfully, there are services that utilize a well formatted web-based CMS to control a designed front-end app for any one attending events.
I first launched the homecoming app in 2012, for the university's landmark 125th anniversary year. Attendance at events almost doubled and campus awareness drastically increased. The events were better detailed to students, faculty, and staff, and people could even exchange event photographs. Most importantly, people could find the events, thanks to an interactive venue map. With the help of many dedicated advisees and an app, the student organization I advised was awarded by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education as most outstanding homecoming in the entire country, among 800+ other college programs.
EdTech
It is no surprise, I utilized an app again in fall 2013 to continually bolster campus homecoming exposure. Infusing technology into an otherwise paper driven environment has a huge impact on campus culture, expectation, and awareness. Having all details for a myriad of events right on a smartphone is priceless as an event planner. Often, colleges do not consider apps to drive event management or marketing because of misaligned pricing assumptions and lack of knowledge. It was my personal goal to shake that rumor on my campus.
Having infused the nation's largest homecoming with a new technology, I was recruited off the university by Guidebook, the creator of my fall 2012 iOS homecoming app. Guidebook, a startup founded in 2011, is a company that develops template based apps for conferences, museums, schools, universities, and similarly structured entities. With a new goal to specifically target higher education institutions, Guidebook was looking for someone with a background both in technology and education.
With my specific mix of iDownloadBlog background, app integration, and education experience, my resume was the intentional mix of items suited for the job. Obviously, growing up with a love for technology helped lead me in a specific direction, but the execution of that passion came down to begging iDownloadBlog for a job and then applying my skill set during the day, on-campus as a staff member.
With Guidebook, I will be a new Account Executive, tasked with educating colleges and universities around the country on iOS apps, but from a personal perspective. With my events, adding app-based marketing, advertising, and event details, the university program I advised was catapulted in a way simple paper posters cannot. I began working in education to teach and advise students, a passion to enhance their student experience by creating engaging campus activities.
Taking my educator passion and combining it with love-of-tech, Guidebook will provide me a platform upon which I can meet more students and help other educators realize the importance of digital media on their college campuses. Essentially, I am an app enthusiast for a living, but in the specific sector I was originally seeking full time employment--education.
Continuing with iDownloadBlog
Does this mean my review days are over? Absolutely not! Guidebook encouraged me to continue blogging with iDownloadBlog, as it is a form of professional development. It helps me keep my ear to the ground. Over the past two years, I have had the distinct pleasure of attending CES as an iDownloadBlog representative, keeping me in tune with the quickly changing technology landscape.
Most importantly, working in higher education killed a majority of my free time. Running events and advising students in my department was a 50-55+ per week job. Now, I love working with students and seeing them mature, grow, and change over the course of an academic year, but the relentless and inflexible hours began to wear me down. Leaving a job with such a robust time commitment will only increase my opportunity to blog more frequently.
If you noticed, a majority of my iDB posts over the past two months have only been Wallpapers of the Week. It is upsetting to be so behind on my review posts and, more importantly, giveaways. With a new Guidebook position, my hours are more flexible, less demanding, and allow for increased activity on iDownloadBlog.
Follow your passions
If I learned anything from this experience, it is to follow one's passions. As a young kid, I always loved technology, but never really considered it as a viable profession. It didn't help that I failed, earned an "F," in high school programming. That class instantly turned me away from technology in general; however, I did not consider the vast array of jobs available to someone that loves technology. Programming is not the only way to break into the industry, but 15-year-old me had no idea.
All of the reading, long trips to Best Buy, and expensive purchases later, blogging became a great way to fulfill my tech passion and give back to a specific readership community. Once I was "in" with iDownloadBlog, I had a way to control my gadget lust and share experiences.
Learning everything I could from my experience with blogging and reading, I utilized my day job to practice what I learned. Adding technology to areas that are void of electronic influence can completely modify a landscape. In my particular case, adding iOS app knowledge and know-how increased the student experience at a large, tier one, Land Grant research university. 4,000+ students downloaded and used the app more than 32,000 times at an average of 33 seconds per session. That is just on one campus, for one event.
Following my passion with Guidebook allows me to connect with hundreds of new campuses, students, faculty, staff, and administrators. Taking advantage of all my resources, I was able to turn my passion into a full time job.
I encourage you to do the same. Whatever you are passionate about, follow that passion. Use your confidence, drive, and desire to make something happen. The road to this ideal job in Palo Alto was a seemingly long one, but looking back at my life and career so far, the opportunity makes perfect sense.
Just take the next step and don't be afraid to ask, to try, to fail.
