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Month: October 2020

Five Reasons You Need A Software Development PortfolioPhoto by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Published 2020/10/26

Five Reasons You Need A Software Development Portfolio

Greetings prospective employee! Thank you for applying for the job opening that we have posted. Let me take a quick glance at your resume. Hmmm. Nice. OK. Good. A little light over there, but looks like some solid strengths over here. Not bad. What else ya got? It is awesome that I read your resume because that means that you made it past the initial weed-out. Now as a hiring manager I am going to set your resume down in a stack of dozens of other very similar resumes and go on about my day. Let’s get on the same page about one thing right now. It is going to be extremely hard for you to impress me or rise about the rest of the crowd just by what you put down on one or two sheets of paper. Sorry to burst your bubble. There are no magic words, images,…

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You Can’t Use The Corner Of Your Desk For Awesome And Successful ProjectsPhoto by Wonderlane on Unsplash
Published 2020/10/23

You Can’t Use The Corner Of Your Desk For Awesome And Successful Projects

Before reading any further, stop, scoot your chair back, and take a look around. What does your reading environment look like? Where are you right now? Are you at work taking a few minutes to browse the web? Are you outside catching up on some news and reading while enjoying the fresh air? Have you been sitting too long in the bathroom while glued to your phone? Twenty years ago, if you were reading a blog then most likely you would have been tied to a desk somewhere, looking at a big and bulky CRT monitor with an actual trackball inside your mouse. Now, chances are, you are sitting there swiping with a finger on a 6 inch screen with more resolution than that massive CRT monitor had those 20 years ago. Yet even with the change in technology and habits over the past two decades, the concept of a…

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You Do NOT Have To Code In Your Spare Time To Be SuccessfulPhoto by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash
Published 2020/10/17

You Do NOT Have To Code In Your Spare Time To Be Successful

Recently I saw a comment or a tweet about Engineers and Doctors. This is the type of message that I wish I had the forethought to save somewhere because I keep thinking about it. As a follower of the beg, borrow, or steal philosophy, I have co-opted this idea into my own, but it is always best to give credit to the originator. In this case, I did not save it so I don’t have that information, so I apologize in advance, random internet person. Anyways, the message went something like this (as I recall in my own words): Why are Engineers always getting asked what side projects they are working on? Why is there an expectation that a good Engineer always needs to be working on work outside of work? We don’t ask Doctors if they perform surgeries on their days off or over weekend breaks, so why is…

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9 Steps You Need To Follow For Good Business CommunicationsPhoto by naomi tamar on Unsplash
Published 2020/10/13

9 Steps You Need To Follow For Good Business Communications

One of the biggest mantras that my team hears over and over and over again: Communicate, communicate, and then go back and communicate some more. This concept is absolutely critical to everything in the business world. People crave information. People need direction. People desire knowledge. All of these things come from communication. Yet, most of us don’t know how to make this transfer of information work effectively. There is no place that the delivery of news (or lack thereof) drives conflict than in movies. This is an easy and fun game to play. First, pick your favorite movie. Let’s use Back To The Future 2 as an example. Second, determine some kind of communication that would have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble and basically ended the movie right then and there. Ready? Whew that was fast. The new version of Back To The Future 2 is now only…

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7 Ways To Gain And Keep Your Manager’s TrustPhoto by Michael Shannon on Unsplash
Published 2020/10/01

7 Ways To Gain And Keep Your Manager’s Trust

The world has changed. Upon first glance that statement seems obvious and almost a little silly. Of course the world has changed, the world changes each and every day. New products come out. More people are The concept that is really on my mind here is the massive changes in the workplace due to the coronavirus. SO maybe a better phrase to use here would be something like this: The workplace has changed. And it will probably never go back to the way that it was before. Yet, even thinking through this idea, this is nothing new. Go watch an episode of Mad Men. The workplace that we know in 2019 looked nothing like that office ideal. While it can be said that any dramatization of workplace culture and etiquette can only present one ruby-lensed viewpoint of a workplace, there are some big differences that can be seen when comparing…

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