Posted by Phil on August 27, 2008 – 4:09 am
I must be a glutten for punishment. I’ve always said that most techies are closet masochists. In truth though, I love the chase, the challenge of the learning curve. It seems that every six months or so I climb yet another hill with every project requiring skills that I don’t presently posses.
Four months into an intranet implementation with Microsoft SharePoint it’s nice to be moving up the hill a bit further. Fairly new to .Net, I’ve been configuring the site and leading the team project. Next month we start the launch in phases over the course of the Fall. The requirements are steep and development will be ongoing. I’m sure, just about the time I get comfortable and accomplished in SharePoint development another major initiative will come along, just to keep me on my toes.
Sometimes I wish for more ruts in my life, but honestly if I got my wish I’d go mad. Being a glutton for punishment and constantly in learning mode has certainly been an asset. As a successful professional techie I see some key traits that have served me well. I also recognize these traits in others that I’ve worked with over the years:
- Stay flexible and don’t personalize technology. I know Apple has made a mint by personalizing technology. That’s all fine and good when it comes to your iPod or Mac book, but getting personal with technology, expressing a strong bias will limit the possibilities. In truth, the major development platforms, languages, methodologies all have their merits or they wouldn’t have stuck around.
- Stay on the learning curve to keep relevant. Technology is in a constant state of change, well no duh. Staying technically relevant therefore dictates maintaining a constant state of learning. If "research or die" is the mantra of the college professor, "learn or die" would be for the techie. Speaking of technologies state of change, watch "Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web" on Ted.com. It will blow your mind or make you wanna crawl-up into the fetal position.
- Say yes as much as possible, but follow-through. Being known as a go-for-it guy can be quite dangerous, but it also presents opportunities. Being honest and not over committing is essential. When beginning this intranet implementation project, I was asked what it would take to effectively launch the site. I said six months to get a good start. The higher-ups said, "let’s do it in three." That’s all fine and good, but as I indicated it will take six months to fully launch the project, and so it will.
- Know your limits and then push past them. The curve always posses challenges that are beyond my existing skill set. Honesty enables one to assess the required learning curve to climb the next hill. There is such a thing as getting-in so far over ones head that the project implodes. Not a good thing.
- Don’t under-rate yourself. If you have been working aggressively in technology for any length of time you are probably worth more than you are getting paid. Being on a constant learning curve helps to keep ones feet on the ground, but it can also strike at your ego. You are likely more gifted and bring to the table more resources than you realize.
- Serve people not technology. What’s the point if it doesn’t positively affect people. Keeping your eye on the end-user will also drive your relevancy as their needs constantly change. It’s easy to get caught-up in pet projects and lose sight of pressing needs.
- Win as many hits as possible. In a large project, sometimes I hit barriers in the curve that are more difficult than I anticipated. So, keep moving and knocking-out items while I keep hammering at the biggies along the way.
- Be a life-long learner. Taking classes, attending conferences, joining user groups, building your network, reading industry sites and magazines should be a given.
- Just when you got it figured-out, the rules will change. Comforting I know, but such is life.
Change happens. In the words of Paul Simon, "What are you going to do about it? that’s what I’d like to know." What do you do to stay current?
Posted by Phil on August 15, 2008 – 9:55 am
It’s always fun to do a little show-and-tell. So class, today I want to show you my latest WordPress site. It’s for the IEEE EMC 2009 Symposium that our company, ETS-Lindgren is serving as one of the principal hosts. The site is just gaining steam and will have some pretty nifty code features in terms of scheduling, interactivity, visual tours etc. The graphic design was outsourced which was a real help in getting things moving. The niftiest feature on the site so far is the promo video which is a nice look at Austin. I had the pleasure of working with a local studio to manage and provide the creative direction for the project. The video imported nicely into Flash with progressive download enabling a higher resolution than embedding the video. This method of import resulted in a fairly nice end product for the web. The event takes place next summer so I’ll do a revist to the site sometime down the line when there’s more to talk about.
Posted by Phil on August 11, 2008 – 8:05 am
This morning I was perusing through Kellementology.com, Kelly’s ever inspiring blog and ran across a reference to wordle.net. The image is from my wordle of thoughtsparks.net. While tag clouds are nifty in the sense of expressing categories, wordle is more like a look into the psychie of the person writing the blog. For better or worse I talk a lot about certain ideas or topics. Good to see that words such as "life", "change" and "great" top the list. Hope I continue to pursue making great changes in my life 
Posted by Phil on August 11, 2008 – 6:11 am
Maybe it’s entropy or just getting set in your ways, but as one gets older it seems on the outside that it gets harder and harder to change. In reality our lives and our bodies are in a constant state of change. It’s just that as we move through life some of those changes are not always positive, healthy or improvements to our overall well being.
A year ago I decided that some things in my life needed to change and while in no way it’s been easy, I’ve made some real progress in the right direction:
- First change came on August 27th when I stopped drinking coffee and any caffeinated drink. Since then I still have tea but it has become so irregular that I am no longer tethered to caffeine to get me through my day.
- The drop in caffeine resulted in the reduction of sugar due to the fact that I no longer try to keep the peak going all day instituted by large quantities of caffeine in the morning.
- My overall weight has dropped a solid ten pounds from the peak of 202. I now bump along or just under the 190 mark. Partly a result of the decrease in sugar intake, small changes in diet and increased exercise.
- Started walking this summer with my sweet wife Sabrina and our dog Sheba around the neighborhood for half an hour each evening. To my wonderful surprise at the dentist last week my blood pressure dropped a full 20 points on the top and bottom numbers from six months ago. I was on the high end of normal previously. While weight loss had a part to play I believe the daily exercise had the biggest roll.
- Had braces put on a few weeks ago. It’s a strange feeling just prior to turning 40 years-old to be wearing a mouth appliance of teenager. All three of my girls and myself are in different stages of orthodontic care. Just image the ding that one is to the pocket book.
- Grew a gotee. No health implication here but with braces and a gotee, a slightly trimmer me, I both feel and look a bit different from a year ago.
There are other changes happening in my life that are subtle and still brewing. Change brings change and almost like waking from a stooper realized that I need to be more tenacious to drive change in the right direction as I move through life. I realize that life will constantly change and I need to be aggressive to keep moving against the flow if I’m going to enjoy the ride. Those small habits affecting how we spend our time, our money and all the resources we posses brings big effects either positive or negative in the long run.
