Keynote Feedback

I've been giving a Career 2.0 keynote talk in various venues and thought I'd share some of the feedback I've been getting.

Jack Frosch heard me at the Rich Web Experience in DC last week. He writes:

The most frustrating situations I encounter teaching in the JUG and the community college are those of the legacy COBOL / RPG developers desperate to upgrade their skills. Of course, they want to do it fast and easy. Unfortunately, like the 60 year old who never saved for retirement, they haven't been investing in their Knowledge Portfolio and have only their initial, 30-year-old "one-time" investment to work with. Now they face the prospect of downsizing or their job being outsourced. Some have been told their legacy programming jobs are scheduled to be eliminated - as soon as they finish training their outsourced replacements! (This is perhaps the ultimate slap in the face from companies who only wanted them to be "good enough, but not so good they could leave.")

Many got into COBOL 20 or 30 years ago straight from college. They mistakenly believe just taking a course or two will prepare them to compete against experienced Java and web developers. They're overwhelmed by the prospect of learning object-oriented programming, a modern programming language, and development methodologies.

Nearly everyone in our field knows someone like this. They got out of college, then coasted through their careers. They worked hard everyday, but they never looked around to see what was going on outside their team. Eventually, it always catches up with you.

Ken Sipe, a fellow NFJS speaker, sent me this:

Here are two points you might want to know.

1st: Getting know (Visibility) I specifically got an extra $20 / hr bill rate based on visibility. The client did not normally pay high dollar rates... they did a google search on my name which resulted in a number of hits. Their jaws dropped and they said we need you.

To your point... I didn't write a book... this were articles, blogs and speaking engagements

2nd: The other point is you just don't know what will be popular... here is a link with a comment which just makes your day.

http://kensipe.blogspot.com/2008/08/fixing-java-memory-tools-on-mac-os-x.html

Let it be know that I was "Internet Hero for a Week" :)

Nice!

From Jason Rudolph, Groovy and Grails guru:

Definitely continue to encourage people to write about everything they do. "Write about everything you do." Or, "Don't do anything without publicizing it / writing about it."

and

You mentioned several times that people can't know what's gonna be popular on their blog. So true!

* I recommend talking even more about the "no pain, no gain" stuff you discussed. When something's hard, you're learning. Otherwise, you're coasting.

* You explained that if you really want to know a topic, write about it. Right on! I couldn't agree more. You might *think* you know a topic, but when you start writing about it, I'll bet you learn more about it than you've ever known. You don't even know what you *don't know* until you start to write about it. :-)

Finally, from Phillip Rhodes,

Hey Jared, I was just thinking about your "Career 2.0"
talk and a thought crossed my mind that I thought I'd
run by you. How about "Creating / Editing Wikipedia Entries" as
an "action item" for becoming a recognized expert on a topic?

Absolutely! That's a great way to get your name out there.

I realize this is a long post, but I've meaning to share some of these for a while. Keep the feedback coming.

The Best Programming Tool You've Got

I was watching The Dog Whipserer... Cesar is amazing! And during one of his shows he made a comment that really applies to our field. He asked a dog groomer what the best equipment was that he had. The groomer named some brand of expensive scissors. Most of us would name our favorite IDE or language. I know a few people who would say their Mac is their favorite development tool.

But Cesar got it right when he corrected the groomer. He said the tools were irrelevant. The best tool you have is yourself. Simple really, but when's the last time you took time to improve yourself. To invest in yourself?

Follow the advice of the financial analysts. Pay yourself first. You can only do your best job for your company if you're the best you can be. It's better for you and it's better for your boss.

Take some time this week and learn something new. Grails 1.0.3 just came out. Rails just released a new version. Erlang is on the rise. Or start small. Follow some of Matt's InfoQ tutorials

But learn something new. You're the best tool you've got. Act like it.

Nomadic programming

What is nomadic programming and why should you do it? Get the full scoop over on my blog.

Why geeks need public speaking

If you know anything at all about public speaking, your perception of it is probably that it's a playground for salespeople, marketers, and trainers; an outlet for extroverted businesspeople to practice their presentations to upper management. This is certainly true, but there is another group that can gain enormous benefit from learning and practicing public speaking: software developers.

Let's face it, we software developers are not thought of as your typical public speaker. But there is room us to learn this skill. There is room to push ourselves to do something that will not only benefit us personally, but help the people around us as well.

As developers, it's very easy for us to sit in our offices all day and avoid as much human contact as possible. Such conditions make activities like extemporaneous speaking or presenting to a large audience very difficult. Organizations like Toastmasters or local user groups come to the rescue by providing an outlet for practicing such speaking.

The environment in these groups is friendly and welcoming enough to make developers feel comfortable getting outside our "coding cocoon." Yet at the same time these groups challenge us to learn how to communicate more effectively.

We've all heard the old saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." When it comes to speaking, though, "it's not what you say, it's how you say it!" It’s difficult to stand in front of a crowd and explain what we do for a living, or give an educational presentation to a roomful of other developers (many of whom may be far more knowledgeable than we are about the topic we’re speaking about). Speaking under these challenging circumstances puts the way we communicate in a whole new perspective. It forces us to think about how other people hear us and adjust our message accordingly.

We’re software developers. We’re proud to claim that title. But we should also be proud to claim the title of public speakers. The experience we gain practicing this skill will continue to benefit us and the people we know long after the software technologies of today have disappeared. That’s something worth pursuing.

Get the Big Things in First

One of the reasons we need to have our big picture goals in mind is so we can actually find time for those goals. Too often we have the best of intentions but we never get around to starting on life long dreams.

Big Rocks First


It helps you eliminate the cruft and focus on what's important. I forgot which author said this, but begin with the end in mind sums it up.

Know where you're headed before you start the journey.

Jared presents at TriJUG tonight

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.

Jared presents a talk titled "Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life" at tonight's Java Users Group meeting in RTP. If you're curious about our book, come on out. His talk will cover a lot of what we're writing about. Pizza and networking at 6:30, talk starts at 7.

Motivation and goals

Motivation is generally the natural result of what we’re doing. We’re motivated to get a license so we can drive to the store. We’re motivated to learn a new programming language because our current job is boring. We’re motivated to lose weight because we want to look like the people in the movies. But often, motivation isn’t natural or free.

Yet most things worth doing in life require the proper motivation. If we have goals that don’t have built-in motivation, it’s up to us to provide what’s lacking. For example, Matthew isn't wild about a consulting gig he's on right now. The work just isn’t that interesting. He motivates himself to work on the project each day by taking hourly breaks and ending the day with a reward… an hour spent reading a book or watching a movie.

This is what has worked for him in his particular situation. The things that motivate you will probably be different. Being around certain people can be motivating. Seeing clear progress towards a goal can be motivating. Cash can be motivating. Reading certain books can be motivating. Blogging can be motivating.

The main reason we created this blog was to motivate us to work on our book. Having a blog about the book makes us accountable to the public. If we aren’t making progress, people will complain. That’s highly motivating for us.

What motivates you? Tell us in the comments.