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Jared Richardson’s talk titled “Build Teams, not Products,” in particular, was one of the best presentations I’ve ever witnessed. It was just one of those talks where all the points seem tautologic...
-Yev Bronshteyn |
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...Much like the Mac, this book “just works”, because it takes the best from lessons learned from team leaders and team players and takes the mystery out of the project management processes as appl...
-Robert Pritchett |
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Do it right from day one or you never will
-Andy Hunt |
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(Apr 29)
I'll be giving my keynote talk Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life at the local Java User's group next month. I gave this as a keynote in Chicago a few weeks ago and it was very well received. Brian Goetz summed it up as "actively manage your career". Pretty close. More than just an admonition to do that, it's also the steps you need to get started.
Triangle Java User's Group
Here's the talk description:
Has your career been a random product of your manager's whims or company's needs? Never rely on your company to keep your skills current and marketable. Take control of your own career with a proven strategy.
These are solid, repeatable steps to get your career in the trajectory you want. The first step is deciding where you want to go. We'll walk through creating a long-term plan, then break it down into manageable steps. Learn to lead within your own company, then stretch out to your local, regional and national community, building your reputation as you go. From coding to writing to speaking, each step will move you closer to where you want to be: in a position of having options and in control of your career.
Category: Personal
(Apr 25)
I've had a Twitter account for a while now, but never done anything with it... however I just added my iPhone as a data entry device. I'll try to start keeping it up to date now that I can do updates in an airport or taxi.
If you're into such things, here's my link
http://twitter.com/jaredrichardson
Category: Personal
(Apr 25)
I was recently on a panel discussion that was asked why should a developer should bother to learn Groovy. They cited Dice.com job results. Much like this blog entry.
Trendy Bastards, Aren't We?
My response to the question "Why should I learn any new technology" is this... do you want to wait to be one of the cogs in the machine? Just another developer among hundreds with a buzzword compliant resume? Or do you want to be the person who learned the new tech, like Groovy and Grails, ahead of the curve, and was then in huge demand while the rest of the industry plays catch up? Do you want to be the person who knows the new, cutting-edge tools and introduces them at work? Or do you want to work with what someone else chooses?
Don't get me wrong... I love Ruby and Rails. I've done very little with Groovy and Grails. But if you limit your learning to existing projects, that means you're limiting your role within your company, and limiting your career, to following the crowd. It's hard to catch a wave after it's crested.
Will every technology you learn be a home run? No. It's like buying stocks. Some will be a home run, some will be a solid return... others will be a learning experience where it's a complete loss.
But over time, if you invest regularly in your knowledge portfolio (or your retirement account), you'll always end up with a decent return and be very comfortable.
Category: Personal
(Nov 1)
I know I haven't been at Cisco very long, but it became apparent that the position wasn't a good fit for me after a few months. Life is too short to waste any of it, so I've moved on and accepted a position at an exciting local startup.
I'll be starting at 6th Sense Analytics next week. If you haven't looked over there products, I'd encourage you to do so. Their products for automatically capturing what type of work people are doing, then determining product state (among many other things) is very cool.
I'm hesitant to describe too much because I haven't started working at 6th Sense yet, and I have a lot to learn about the tools, but here's a little.
Is everyone on the team writing new code? Do they traditionally need a week of testing and editing to get the new features stable? This tool will catch that. When everyone says "We're ready to Ship It!", this tool will provide a simple tool that can say "Actually, you need some time to let the code stabilize... it's still changing significantly every day. You'll be able to ship in two weeks if people stop pushing new code and clean up what's in place."
How much time does your team spend writing automated tests versus new code? Again, this can help you individually, or as a team, to realize you're out of sync with your team.
I've got a lot to learn about the 6th Sense tools, but I'm very excited about this new opportunity.
The one downside? I got lazy. Instead of submitting a talk to Ruby Conf, I let Cisco pay for it... since RubyConf is this weekend, I'm not going.
I probably could've just paid for it myself (Cisco's been very flexible), but I've had a few weekends at home in a row, and it's kind of nice. :) But I'll miss everyone at RubyConf. Blog a lot for me guys!
btw, I still get questions from people about Cisco writing software...(I thought they only made routers??) This was my group. Yes, there are teams at Cisco writing software. Some of it's very cool stuff too.
Category: Personal
(Jul 24)
It's a long story, but last night I verbally accepted an offer to work on a very cool project at Cisco. They have an enterprise Rails and Java project that I find very interesting. The technology stack is pretty big, so I may be dipping back into other technologies as well.
It is a full-time position, not a consulting gig, so this will dramatically change my focus, but I'll continue to speak on the No Fluff tour, and other conferences. The people I'll be working with see the benefit to letting me get out of the office and interface with smart people.
I'll post more when I have more time, but for now that's the announcement. :)
Category: Personal
(Jun 7)
The 'pay yourself first' strategy applies to you personal technology portfolio as much as it does your personal finances. I was reminded of this tonight by an Alan Hoffler blog entry.
Alan's entry said, among other things, "We spend far too much time on our jobs, and far too little on ourselves."
Check out the rest of the entry ... and Alan's blog in general... you'll find good stuff there.
And then find someway ~today~ to invest in yourself both personally and technically. If you don't do it now, when will you? And if it's not important to you, who else do you think will step and take of things for you?
Category: Personal
(May 23)
I stumbled across this book in Wisconsin and really enjoyed it. It's called Eat That Frog. It's a book about getting and staying productive. It's got a ton of overlap with some other material that I'm already working on, so it reinforced quite a bit of writing I've got in the hopper. :)
Category: Personal
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This will be a great collection of speakers on Agile and business topics.
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I'll be talking about keeping your skills current at this conference for independent web developers
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This world-class conference in Orlando always has a great mix of speakers and attendees. Don't miss it!
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