So who is this 'Jay Garmon' dork...?

I, Jared Matthew "Jay" Garmon, am a professional geek. Specifically, I am a writer, husband & father, technologist, science fiction nerd, and self-professed trivia expert. Each of these aspects is entertained at different venues around the Web, as listed below.

Technologist: First and foremost, I am the VP of Product at Finvi, where I try to build some cutting-edge SaaS fintech. I've founded and sold a startup or two in my day, run a $2 billion healthcare transaction platform, built actual factual AI solutions, and once wrote an online spoof of the Daily Show focused on the stars of the Food Network.

As sidelines and consulting work, I have advised on social media and emerging technologies for the Louisville Digital Association (for whom I have served as both president and vice president), Louisville EnterpriseCORP (for whom I was a founding member of their advisory "Justice League"), XLerateHealth (for whom I was a founding director), organized the Louisville Geek Dinner, and, as a guest instructor, helped inaugurate a Social Media marketing curriculum at the University of Louisville. 

Writer: This post is hosted on Jay Garmon [dot] Net, which is my personal blog where I prattle on about whatever topics interest me with very irregular frequency. You can also find herein copies of my science fiction short stories that I have "trunked," which is a euphemism for "given up on trying to publish." Yes, I have written other sci-fi shorts, exactly one of which has been sold for professional publication (though it did make the Tangent list...barely). I haven't written any fiction since my second child was born more than a decade ago, but I hope someday to return to the practice, which is why I started the Aldebaran Roundtable writers group.

I also technically share a screenwriting credit with David Goyer, but that was for a contest, not a job. (I won.)

As to the majority of the writing work for which I've been actively paid, look no further than my LinkedIn profile, and you'll see I've made my living in whole or in part by stringing together words for CNET, CBS Interactive, Scholastic Library Publishing, TechTarget, Backupify, Talla, LinkSquares, Patlytics, Neurometric AI, Rally UXR, and Practical Assurance. But that's all non-fiction, so it doesn't count.

Husband & Father: I have the requisite Facebook page for the disseminating of pictures of my daughters, wife, friends, cats, travel, and Star Trek memes, but -- fair warning -- I also do the "talking about politics" thing there. Don't go if you're sensitive about your votes or policies.

Science Fiction Nerd: I have whittled a long career of semi-professional sci-fi fandom down to a single membership these days: running Hugo McNebula's Reading Circle for a few other book nerds. The membership of said circle has largely been collected from the pursuits below.

Until 2020, I was the Vice Chair of Marketing for ConGlomeration, Louisville's fan-run sci-fi and fantasy convention that shuttered due to COVID-19.

Many moons ago, I was the originator of and prime contributor to The Geekend, a nerd culture blog at TechRepublic, a Web community for IT professionals run by CBS Interactive (I think they call it the "After Hours" section, now). Predating the Geekend is Geek Trivia, a weekly (ahem) geek trivia column that I wrote for more than a decade. Both the Geekend and Geek Trivia have been cited by sources as diverse as author John Scalzi to the editors of Wikipedia.

I was an also an extremely irregular contributor to the Hugo-winning SF Signal blog -- usually their also Hugo-nominated podcasts -- where I performed a barely passable impression of an expert in sci-fi media and fandom.

Self-Professed Trivia Expert: As an adjunct to Geek Trivia, the kind and talented hosts of the now-defunct TechTalk radio show on WRLR 98.3 FM in Chicago had me on as a regular guest. There I snarked about movies, science fiction, technology, current events and ... eventually ... provided a geek trivia question each week.

I also occasionally wrote the Truly Trivial column here at JayGarmon.Net, wherein I threw a few hundred words at an obscure factoid that very possibly only I find fascinating. Inexplicably, other people were entertained by this.

In the unlikely event you would like to retain my services as a consultant, writer, speaker, radio guest, conference/convention panelist, or one-shot dungeon master, you can reach me at jay [at] jaygarmon [dot] net. Depending on the job, I can be be had for very free or very not. Pitch me, and we'll talk.

What I've learned in the last year--the hard way

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On March 26, 2008, I was dismissed from a job I held for seven years, where I did good work with good people and had a lot of fun and earned a decent living. If I hadn't been shown the door, I'd probably still be there. Instead, I've spent the last year squarely outside my comfort zone, for good or ill, and learned a great deal about myself. These facts include:

• Management is harder than it looks. During this past year, I was placed in an upper management position for around eight months. I was "the boss" in a very real sense for the first time. I'm rather introverted by nature, and my usual work flow is give me a task and let me go off alone and grind on it for a while. Being a leader required me to develop new skills that I had never touched on before. It was gratifying, but far harder than any actual "work" I've had to do before.
• Entrepreneurship requires passion, which I'm not known for. GameJabs, the software start-up I helped get going, has stopped going. Our funding got held up, we missed our window in the product space (others have started building products similar to those we planned, and we can't beat the head start), and my partner who fronted the money is auctioning off the codebase to recoup some of his losses. We tried, it failed, and it sucks. I liked the product, and would have used it, but I didn't live and die by its success. None of us did, and I think that played a large part in its undoing. I'm an even keel guy, and I don't rush headlong into much, and that's not the mindset that makes for a successful entrepreneur. I'm going to think long and hard before I undertake another start-up opportunity again.
• I hate sales, which makes me a lousy consultant. I've dabbled in consulting since December, when Vupal (my last day job with a different startup) folded. I've done okay, mostly on referrals from friends who had consulting work they didn't want or couldn't do. I've learned I'm lousy at chasing work, and selling myself. This, quite frankly, is the more important skill set for a consultant than actual competence at the work being done. I'm not a good consultant, and I don't like the lifestyle. I crave structure and certainty, and the freelance life offers neither. That's an important thing to know as I plan my next move.
• I'm a great souce of ideas, but passion is necessary for execution. Every company, partner, or client I've worked for or with in the last year has benefitted from my ideas. That's not hubris; that's what I've been told by these other parties, and the evidence I've seen of it. I've got a knack for coming up with viable options for almost any venture. The problem is I lack the passion to push most of them past the goal line. Like my friend Michelle (another person I've come to know and appreciate in the last year) says, your work is to discover your work. That's what 2008 has been about for me. I'm done chasing things I don't care about.
• I need to learn to say no. Lot's of people want me to help with lots of stuff (usually for free). I spread myself way too thin, and I don't like it. I missed evenings with my daughter, and weekends with my friends, and time at all with my wife, because I chased too many commitments and tried to please too many people. "No" needs to be an acceptable answer, even for people I know and like and want to see succeed. I can't do everything for everyone, even when I want to. This has been hard to accept.
• I don't want to leave Louisville. My easiest career move would have been to relocate to New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, DC or Austin. The kind of Web work I've done is in high demand in those cities, though the relative cost of living would have meant a rather drastic step back in lifestyle for a year or three. That's not why I stayed. I have friends and family here. My wife and I have friends in this town we practically consider family, we've known them so long and so well. I want my daughter to grow up spending at least one evening a week with her grandparents. I'm willing to sacrifice employment opportunity--and it's a serious sacrifice, because as much as I love my hometown, it is designed against innovation in almost every way--to make sure I can keep close these friends and family, in every way possible. They've gotten me through this year.
• I actually like working at home. Time was, I had trouble working from home because I had trouble separating work tasks (deadlines) from home tasks (laundry). In the last year, I've learned how to strike that balance, mostly through time management, and I've found I like--even prefer--working from home. I can get the car's oil changed and write up five blog posts in the same day if I manage my task list correctly, and I like that flexibility. If I land a day job that affords telecommuting, I plan to take extensive advantage of it.
• I'm good at writing, and I miss it. In this whole mess of insanity that has been 2008, I've done almost no fiction writing. My skills have waned. My art has been optional as I've chased work. This has bothered me, more than I expected. When I finally get settled--hopefully with a new day job--I plan to carve out a lot more regular time to write.
• I know what my dream job is now. When I was doing six things, chasing consulting work, trying to build a startup, helping a friend with her event-planning business, and had ten other balls in the air, I followed a whole host of people on Twitter: CEOs, social media experts, local ad agency people, technology experts, entrepreneurs, Web comic artists, and sci-fi writers. Only the last two groups ever really interested me. I relate more to the creatives, to the dreamers, to the folks that make ideas for a living. When all is said in done, that's what I want to do. I'm a writer, and I want to write. I'll need a day job for a while as I ramp up that line of income--and it may never be full time (Web work pays too well, and has benefits)--but that's what I want to do. I think I'm done with any other game.

I've been very lucky this last year, for all the jobs lost and stress endured. I've learned a great deal, and been pushed out of my comfortable niche to finally make some choices that I'd been putting off. My goals now: Get a day job, get my wife and daughter into a bigger house (as we're outgrowing this one), and get cracking on a writing career that has been stalled too long.

Why I'm not a professional novelist

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There are three reasons, actually. The first is my glaring lack of talent, though I can name probably fifty professional authors that haven't let that stop them.

The second is the appalling rate of pay. While I dream of making John Scalzi money, I'd almost certainly make something below Justine Larbalestier money--and that's no knock on Mrs. L. She is teh awesome, but clearly under-appreciated and underfunded. As are most novelists. That's why most writers have day jobs.

But the main reason Im not a professional novelist is that, to do what Charles Stross does, I'd have to average an output of 1000 words per day. And that's finished work, mind you, discounting edits, rewrites, and those days when you merely manage to vomit something onto the page which deserves nothing less that complete and total abandonment, if not outright exorcism from the memory of the universe. Oh, and if one were to get sick or take a vacation, those thousand finished words would needs be made up on another day, skewing the workday average.

I'm not sure I speak 1000 words per day--certainly not 1000 usefully repeatable words--let alone could average such an output in written form. This is why I do about 6 billion other things besides write: partly because I'm better at them than writing; partly because they pay more. But mostly because it's an output I can sustain.

More's the pity.

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