I sense that it would be useful to perform a regular self assessment. I need to establish a baseline and then identify strengths and weaknesses. A key issue is the identification of areas of improvement, and also areas of opportunity.

I am not completely sure how to puzzle this out. I am uncertain of both the format and the mode of description. Still it seems self assessment may generate some positive insights. I have been collecting snippets of information in this topic area. It may be appropriate to keep this page in “Draft” mode i.e. publish it with the notification that it will be changed and updated as schema improvements are made. With those caveats, let us dive in.

My Assets

• Age and varied experience
• Intellectual curiosity
• Ability to write (Lavalin DTP Mgr)
• Cache of imagery collected over past eight years
• Creative skills, design skills
• Past corporate experience (BVOD, Lavalin, HPQ)
• Past public sector experience (CCG, BVOD)
• Past SMB consultant experience
• Info tech skills (but these appear atrophied or problematic)
• HR background (BVOD, SMB consult)
• Training background (CCG, BVOD, SMB consult, HPQ)
• Customer Service (CPQ, HPQ)

Age and Experience

Technically this is a negative. There is significant evidence of people in an advanced age cohort not being considered for employment. There is also evidence that this fact is driving older workers toward self-employment:

“As women get older, they start businesses as they have lost jobs and being hired on as they get older becomes so much more difficult,” she added.

Self-employment in response to age discrimination was one of my early motivations. I share the same rationale described in the quote above. My goal is to make my age and experience into an asset rather than a liability.

Intellectual curiosity

I believe this to be one of my long term strengths. It has been very helpful in regard to my injury as it has propelled me to try and understand the accident as well as a wide range of unfamiliar topics. Since I have “learned how to learn,” I have some facility in this area. I have also turned this into a rehabilitation excercise by forcing myself to read densely written scientific and peer-reviewed medical journal articles. These are extremely difficult to absorb and require multiple readings but I do seem to be able to extract some meaning.

Ability to write

This is a curious area. I have done considerable “technical writing” in the form of training plans, corporate policies and procedures, HR reporting, safety analysis, and incident reporting. I fulfilled a DTP copy editor / production manager role with Lavalin in the late 1980’s. With HPQ, I logged customer technical data and also participated in the development of internal processes and operational guidelines. But none of this is what I would call creative writing. With some of my blog posts I find I am adding literary “flourishes.” I find this interesting and enjoyable but I have no idea where this literary creativitiy comes from. It certainly does not match up with any of my prior experience in wordsmithing.

Image Cache

About a eight years ago I started learning digital photography. I have an extensive prior background in analog photography but digital is very different. One of my prior long term goals was to investigate photography as a means to provide income support in my retirement years as I simply do not have enough retirement savings. In place of money, I now have a large library of images which are now being utilized as headers for these blog posts.

Creative Skills / Design Skills

I have had some engagement in creative activity but much of this dates from the 1970’s. I seem to be re-activating this knowledge in some way.

Past Corporate Experience

While I was employed within corporations, most of these engagements had the flavour of start-ups. BVOD was a definite start-up. My Lavalin work was conducted within an intraprenurial framework. My last 12 years with CPQ and HPQ is the sole example of corporate “drone work.” I performed well in all situations but have a strong preference for start-up activity. Realistically, I question my current ability to perform at the level required as I tend to be very slow.

Past Public Sector Experience

Chiefly my seven odd years in the Canadian Coast Guard, Search and Rescue Division, Western Region. Considerable interaction with public sector personnel while with BVOD  and again, later, as an SMB consultant.

Info Tech Skills

This is how I earned my living for the past 12 years. But for some reason it is also an area that is most problematic for me at present. Info tech should be a strong suit but instead I feel blanked and out of my depth. Just in writing this assessment I feel a much stronger attachment to my SAR experience and other work from those early years and a much weaker connection to my most recent employment. I do not understand this. I do know I have been trying to acquire additional tech skills and this has been very arduous and difficult for me. I know this may contradict what I set out earlier but I am trying to achieve an understanding and these contradictions are part of the landscape to be explored.

Past SMB Consultant

With BVOD I filled the role of an internal consultant. After Lavalin I sought to offer my skills package as a consultant in the hope that this might lead to regular employment. The maritimes is very tough ground for a start-up and I left the region in the recession of the early 1990’s for this reason.

HR Background

Strong prior skills in this area. But I am woefully out of date. Most of this activity was with BVOD and later again as an SMB consultant.

After attending Queen’s to add some new credentials I embarked on the creation of a non-profit that was designed to provide an online vehicle for career discovery and exploration. This was an interesting mix of HR activity and tech, especially Web ver 1. No such thing as WordPress or php. It was all handcoded static HTML with a scattering of CGI.

Training Background

As above. This background may likely prove helpful in information presentation. Long history here starting with SAR, then BVOD, then SMB work and a later phase with HPQ. I credit my background in epistemology as granting me basic skills applicable to HRD.

Customer Service

Most recent skill set. Acquired with CPQ and HPQ This was targeted to their needs and their customer base but I suspect it has much broader application.

Opportunities

This is actually deficits gussied up to make it more palatable. These need to be faced. Apart from the obvious, such as age and injury, there are the following considerations.

Routinization

I find myself getting sidetracked into the performance of routine repetitive functions and feeling quite positive about this. What is peculiar is that in many cases the routine encompasses something that I would normally write a batch file to complete, or an application script, or even use some of the built in agent processes in  application software. But instead of doing any of these things I just become totally absorbed in repetitive activity. And I enjoy it! In the past it would have been a huge irritation.

Learning Constraints

There are a great many web resources available, especially for those in the IT sector. I should have the greatest ease in this area (and I did find it easy when employed) but now this is very much a blank wall of difficulty. Against this, I appear to be discovering a well of literary creativity for which I fail to understand the origins. Part of starting this blog was to challenge myself and see what I might accomplish. But the technical side remains blocked while the literary side advances. I find this curious.

Planning Constraints

I appear to have difficulty with planning and engaging with future related issues. Again, part of the idea for this blog is that it would force me to engage in such planning. Yet I have done very little of it. The future remains an uncertain black hole and I have trouble getting my thoughts around it.

Headaches and Fatigue

Dr H advised that I should cease activity when I sense these coming on. So I will interrupt this work. I shall keep it as a “draft” and return to it as I develop additional thoughts and insights.