Jason Spector.com

I want to start this week (and this month) off with a dose of inspiration. Derek Silvers gave a brief but insightful talk on TED about challenging our assumptions and how the opposite may be equally true. I really like how his light demeanor and relevant examples easily demonstrates the far-reaching potential of this concept.

I certainly don’t want to make this out to be the one true event that challenges our world view and moves us into a new age of enlightenment. That would be silly. But I do think it’s message could open a few eyes in the fields many of us work in, such as design, marketing, innovation, sales and business.

As many of you may have noticed, my presence on this site lately has been a little sparse. Since my fun wrap up of 2009, a lot has happened and I took a small hiatus to soak it all in. In short, I’ve made the move from an employee to an independent consultant and entrepreneur . Why? To be honest, it was thrust upon me as so many others before me. And like many others before me, I took it as an opportunity to explore what I want to do, where I want to be and how I can make the greatest impact.

But before we look forward, we should take a look back…

As we wind down 2009, the blogosphere is a buzz with end-of-year posts. Everyone wants to finish up on a high note and why not? We’ve all watched, learned and experienced many things and events that we never would’ve even considered this time last year.

Now it’s my turn. But what to write about? Hmmm….

As job losses and business closures continue to increase, more and more people are turning to social media to give them a boost – both in the job market and as a tool of self-promotion. There isn’t a place more evident of this trend than on LinkedIn, where the site’s foundation is based on business and other professional connections. Looking through my connections list, for example, I see a sharp decrease in business names under “Company Name” and an increase of more generic terms like “self-employed” or “independent consultant”.

Seems innocent enough, but what you may not know is that labeling yourself this way adds you to the growing number of employees of the “Self Employed” company.

Before I was involved in design, user experience, crowdsourcing, social media and the various other aspects of my professional life, there was animation. I’ve always been a seriously dedicated fan of cartooning and animation – the creativity, energy, innovative techniques and most importantly, how it made me feel creating it and the audience feel watching it. So when an animation legend like Don Bluth speaks, I listen.