Hey, there’s even more Bill to love
From time to time, I write short (for me) blog posts for eGaming Review. Recently they asked me to revamp an old post I had written regarding pitching product ideas to online poker rooms. I have to admit that I took a little longer than usual doing this one with all of my moving around and a quasi-civil war going on around me but I was able to crank it out and they’ve put it up on their website.
Are you available?
About once every other week I get contacted by a headhunter who wants to know what I’m up to and would I be interested in hearing about some role they have available at some unnamed poker room in some unnamed country. Either that, or they want to know what I’m looking to do now. I’m flattered but my typical response goes a little something like this:
Despite all of the political problems going on at the moment, I enjoy living in Thailand. I have no strong desire to relocate at the moment. So my ideal choice is for something that I can do from here or that only required me to be in Europe (or North/Central America) periodically. Despite being rather third-world’ish Thailand has a modern communications infrastructure. I have Skype, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, and have VOIP with UK and US phone numbers. I’ve already done a few consulting projects for poker rooms back in Europe and the biggest obstacle we’ve encountered is the time difference which is easily resolved by me just stating my day later.
With those parameters, the following kinds of roles match nicely:
Journalist/Columnist/Blogger
Business Analyst / Consultant
Product Manager
The Journalist/Columnist/Blogger should be fairly obvious. I’ve been writing about poker for close to seven years now. This blog has steadily built up an audience and is seen as an authoritative source on the industry. I would really love to do some tournament coverage for events here in Asia though. It’s an easy pitch. I’m already here in Asia and you can save a few thousand on airfare.
I’ve already done several assignments as a Business Analyst / Consultant. The work ranges from helping companies analyze their data in order to find areas where they can improve various KPIs to assisting them with promotion ideas. I’ve pretty much been involved with every facet of the online poker business so if you need a fresh mind or an outside point of view I can probably help.
As a Product Manager I’ve managed remote development teams for several years. Across oceans, cultures, and even languages. If the development team is already working from a separate location than the product management it’s an even better fit because there is little disadvantage for someone to manage the development remotely.
That’s my first choice. My second choice would be to relocate for the right opportunity. What is the right opportunity? It’s sort of like the US Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity: I’ll know it when I see it.
Whatever it is, it has to be unique. As regular readers of the blog might have gathered by now, I think most poker rooms are all doing the same old thing. Nobody is out there shaking things up. I don’t really want to be a part of that. That’s not something that’s going to make me jump out of bed every morning excited about what I’m working on.
It doesn’t even have to be with a poker room. It could be an affiliate or even a vendor that services the online poker industry. Whatever it is, it has to be something I can get passionate about. Otherwise, it’s really not worth it to leave paradise (Thailand).
I think I’ll just link to this post the next time a recruiter emails me about whether or not I’m available and what I’m looking to do.
Oh . . . if you have something that fits the above, by all means, drop me a line 🙂
Speaking of recruiters . . .
I already mentioned it in a post but I’m offering a great way to get your job openings in front of a very niche audience. If you have a high priority vacancy to fill give me a shout and we can discuss getting your job posting listed on Bill’s Poker Blog.
Dirty Facebook tricks . . .
I’m not sure how much this has to do with poker but I’m sure someone will see some marketing value here. A girl I know recently tagged me in a video she uploaded to Facebook. When I clicked on the link to her video and watched it I was nowhere in the video. It was then that I noticed she had tagged every one of her Friends. So now whenever anybody comments on the video you get an email telling you that someone has commented on a video that you’re in.
I don’t know if I should say something to her as I’m sure she would take it the wrong way (long story) but this is the second time she’s done this. It’s just sort of obnoxious that you think that your video is so important that you feel the need to sneakily trick your friends into watching it.
Any advice?
Sigh . . .
I went to the town hall meeting hosted by the US embassy on Monday. I was disappointed that they basically said that there’s nothing to worry about. I thought we were going to hear some juicy tidbits especially since they made it clear that the meeting was “off the record” and that only US citizens would be allowed in the room.
Nada.
I did find the US ambassador, Eric G. John, to be a very funny and likable guy though. Like any good diplomat his humor is rather dry. When someone asked about whether the US State Department was speaking to the red shirts (UDD) he responded (paraphrased) “Yes, we’ve been talking to them. Whether we’re being heard is an entirely different matter.”
The regional security advisor, after giving the usual, have water, food, and candles in case you’re cut off from basic services stuff, did offer one interesting piece of advice. He said that if you hear an explosion never go to a window or your balcony to investigate. He said that in the bombing of the US embassy in Kenya the terrorists had set off a small bomb and which drew embassy staff to the windows to see the damage. Then a second, much larger explosion went off several minutes later. He said 98% of all casualties were people standing in front of windows or on balconies during the second blast.
As disappointed as I was at the lack of juicy gossip, what really let me down was my fellow Americans. It was a town hall meeting so audience members were invited to ask questions which seemed to be the downfall of the meeting.
One guy was asking about why the BTS (sky train) extension was taking longer than expected. Really? You’re going to ask the US ambassador why a Thai construction project that has no US involvement whatsoever is behind schedule? Are you retarded?
Another wanted to know why the Thai baht was still so strong against foreign currencies. Is the US embassy now your financial advisor?
I was there with a few other guys I knew from Thailand Friends and we all left after the questions reached a certain level of stupidity.
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