In October of 2008, my employer of 15 years shut its doors for good. After a mild freakout, I decided to make a go of working for myself.
I had been working as the IT director for a residental school in rural Massachusetts. I had also been blogging on my own for about five years, and professionally with The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Parenting Magazine for about 2 years each. In that time, I realized how much I love writing and blogging. I’ll admit that I spent the last year with my employer thinking more and more about blogging full time. “I wonder if I could do this for a living?” I thought. That was the dream.
To make a long story short, I’ve been doing it since October. I’ve also helped some small business owners develop blogs of their own. Of course, what I know about writing and blogging is eclipsed by what I don’t. It’s time for some professional development.
It’s January, which is when people resolve to improve themselves. I’m doing the same, but I want to make it fun. Here’s professional development, World of Warcraft style.
I’ve been playing “WoW” (as the cool kids call it) for a couple of years now. For the uninitiated, it’s an online role playing game that keeps nerds like me entertained in the late night hours. Players create a avatar and team with others to complete missions, or quests, gain experience points and increase their skills in various professions.
Formal gatherings of players are called guilds, and guild members support each other’s progress. As play progreses, players advance in level, acquiring new and improved skills and items. For a full explanation, check Wikipedia.
Here’s my real-world avatar (also known as me):
Statistics
- Faction: Alliance
- Race: Human
- Class: Tech Writer
- Guild: Refresh Cape Cod
- Profession Specializations: Apple products, blogging
- Secondary professions: WordPress
Current rankings
- Level: 1 (gotta start somewhere)
- Experience Points (XP): 0/100 (level 2 acquired at 100 XP)
Quest log
Quests are the tasks that, when completed, increase experience points, overall knowledge and skills. Plus, you get better “stuff.” In Warcraft, it’s things like weapons and gear. In real life, it’s things like cooler gigs, a nicer website, respect from the community and so on.
In Warcraft, quests are distributed by “quest givers.” I’ll be determining my real-world quests by myself (unless someone hands me something cool to work on). Here’s where I’ll list my quest log, the steps need to complete a quest, the target reward and increase in experience points. I’ll post updates on my progress to the main blog. Here we go!
~ Quest: Increase WordPress Skills ~
Description: I’ve got great basic WordPress skills. Installation, configuration, setup, plugins, etc. are no problem for me. However, I need to develop more advanced skills. Intermediate customization, PHP skills and template design are the goals of this quest.
Objective: Build a WordPress theme from scratch and install it on a working blog.
Materials: How To Be A Rockstar WordPress Designer by Rockable Press.
Reward: 10 Experience Points. Enhanced skills to offer friends and clients. Greater understanding of design, WordPress and PHP. A self-designed weblog.
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