For a couple of months, I’ve been toying with the idea of developing an on-line networking site.  I’ve spent countless hours (when I probably should have been working on my studies) thinking about the different aspects and features of my very cool networking site.  I multi-tasked in class looking at different software that I could use to develop it. I thought about domain names, and mission statements, and how to build a business brand (or at least a non-profit) around my idea.  Like everything I do, I obsessed about it.

So.

Here’s my idea. Or the story behind my idea.

2 weeks ago I listened (or pretended to) to a lecture by a government hack who was talking a group of other government hacks (and future government hacks, i.e. MPAers) about the way we Gen Y and Millennial (and Gen X to a certain extent) MPA, MPP degree holders manage our careers.

His main points:

We change jobs frequently. We aren’t attached to a job title, an organization or a boss.  If something better, more fun, more interesting, more engaging comes along; we bounce like a bad check.  On to bigger and better things. (This is not a surprise to anyone under 32.)

We change sectors frequently. We don’t particularly care if we work for non-profits, governments (local, state or federal), or the private sector or ourselves. And at some point in our careers, most of us will have worked for a combination of these entities.  Most of us are in it to make a difference, change the world, start a revolution-otherwise we would be getting MBA’s and not MPA’s. And chasing the almighty dollar.

Ahem.  That is the back story.

This is the front.

I am looking for a work opportunity and I want to expand my professional work-related network. I would say I want to start my career but that sounds so stick in the mud and is so.not.me. I would say I’m looking for a job, but “job” sounds hard and boring and I don’t want work to be hard, I want it to be fun, engaging and I want to contribute to the welfare of my fellow man, dammit.  And I really don’t care who I work for.

And I figured there are lots of others just like me, graduating with a MPA, MPP, Political Science, Social Policy, blah blah blah degree but not really looking to be a cog in someone else’s wheel. And I know there are other young professionals and recent grads just like us who are trying to get off the bureaucracy bandwagon and actually DO something useful.  Even if it’s just for volunteer.

And then I thought, Wouldn’t it be fun if we all (all the world changers, in all job sectors, around the world) had a place where we could meet, greet, exchange ideas, talk about available jobs, share our work/war stories (horror and other) network, chit chat, build a community, make a difference, help each other and save the world (and the whales)?

My networking site could be a hub for all the sh!t that I think about when I’m sitting in class learning (supposedly) how to affect organizational change or read a regression line.

Today my school sent me a survey, no doubt sponsored by the government hack from the beginning of the story, and it listed some of the best known on-line social media outlets (myspace, facebook, linkedin, blogs)  and asked the question, which of these do you utilize  most? I scrolled down to the bottom of the list, because, of course, I use them all and I want pick the other box so I can add twitter (and ping) and when I get to the bottom I see a website that I have never heard of.

Like all things internet related, I must know what this mysterious, unknown website is……

And damn if it’s not my f*cking idea!  Just in case you, like me, have been living under a rock, apparently, and have never heard of this site; it is Idealist.org and it is pretty f*cking cool.  I’m just mad I didn’t think of it first. Dammit.

Now I have to think of another big idea. Sh!t.

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