Let’s leave aside ethical and moral considerations for the moment and think about what can be gained from contributing to the public domain. At first glance, there does not seem to be much solid ROI to be gained from giving away your work product, via something like the creative commons use license. It’s non-specific, and credit, if given, is not usually highlighted or given primary focus, so many won’t even realize it’s your work on display.
Other types of work, like contributing to the digitization at Project Gutenberg, are even more thankless. Adding to the sum of archived knowledge is definitely helpful in a general, charitable sort of way, but is there a more tangible, immediate benefit to you as a web worker as well? In both examples, the answer is yes.
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A big chunk of web working has to do with managing your online presence. That means staying on top of social media trends, managing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other profiles, and making sure all these communities are working to your advantage. A well-managed online presence could mean a Digg front-page one day, and a well-placed link another, generating a lot of traffic and interest in whatever service/product you may be selling.
It’s surprising, then that people so often overlook the value of a personal blog in the social media web.
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As a web worker, you likely gave up sending out paper resumes long ago. But is the online profile that you show prospective employers anything more than a marked-up copy of that old version? If so, VisualCV wants to help you bring that hoary old document into the web age. After a free registration, you can create your VisualCV, you end up in the company’s browser-based editor. Here you can add and edit typical sections like “Objective”, “Work History”, and “Education” to your CV.
But things don’t stop there. What makes VisualCV stand out is the variety of content that you can add to areas like the Portfolio sidebar. Web sites you’re proud of creating? Put up screenshots. Video or audio recordings to show off your people skills? Put those in too. The end result is somewhere between a traditional resume and a single-page portfolio web site. VisualCV also offers you control over who can see your work, and lets you create multiple versions to put forth a different persona to different readers. Best of all, it’s all free.
