Tech | Career | Musings
Catch up with Part 3 (which has back-links to previous installments) if you’re not up to speed.
In the previous installment, I shared some of the common characteristics I’ve seen at companies who are really excellent at making learning one of their ordinary, day-to-day production outcomes. In this article, I want to share some specific “lessons learned” for leaders.
Read MoreI’ve written a couple of dozen traditionally published IT books. I’m super-proud of like four of them. If you’re considering setting out to write a traditionally published book, know that it’s hard. Here’s why.
Read MoreI’ve decided to embark on what will doubtless be a months-long project: a book that covers the history of PowerShell, from its earliest inception to the shell we all know and use today. But I want to do more than just document the dry facts: I want to capture the impact.
Read More Read Part 1 if you haven’t!
As I’ve been thinking about this idea of, “how business leaders can include learning as just another ordinary production outcome,” I wanted to dwell for a moment on the learners’ side of the equation.
Read More I’ve been in a lot of recent discussions with people who work in tech within medium- and large-sized business. There’s been a common – by no means ubiquitous, but certainly common – thread that I want to spend some time pulling.
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So, it’s Christmas Eve Day. It’s cold outside. It’s raining. Blegh. And so obviously, I get to thinking about tropical cocktails, and piña colada drifts through my brain.
I know that piña means pineapple in Spanish. But colada? I mean, as far as I know, it means wash, with a kind of connotation for laundry. Washed pineapple?
And so down the rabbit hole I go.
Read MoreSo, in looking back at 2019, and even 2018, I realized that I was being a bit selfish in a super-specific way. It’s something I want to change for 2020, and it’s something you can help me with.
Here’s the deal: I know a lot of folks in the IT industry, a lot of whom are renowned experts in their space. That’s partly because I’ve been around a while, and some of the people I “grew up with” are now doing amazing things. It’s partly because so much of my career was spent at conferences, where I got to meet these incredible professionals. And it’s partly because I’ve been able to work with some of the best tech companies out there, meaning I’ve worked with the wonderful people who make those companies so great.
I’ve leaned on these people, believe me. They’ve gotten be out of technical jams, given me career advice, helped me understand how different types of businesses run, and offered me some fresh new perspectives on things I thought I’d already figured out. They asked nothing for all that help, because they’re simply great people. They’re a big part of what I wrote Be the Master, which is more than anything else my distilled effort to “pay it forward” like they all did.
But I’ve realized that not everyone has ready access to such a diverse pool of wonderful people. And so for 2020, I’m going to try and open up my pool of people to you.
Read MoreI don’t think I’ve done this before, but this has been a bit of a new cycle for me this week, so I wanted to wrap it up for anyone who may have missed a bit.
The DSC Book is now open-source and owned by a community organization. That means it has a minimum price of $0 on Leanpub, and anything you choose to pay goes to DevOps Collective scholarships.
I’ve released The Never, a book I’ve been wanting to write for 18 years. It’s almost 80,000 words, and I’m immensely happy about it. There’s a free ebook offer for those who want to help get the book noticed.
I’ve released Be the Master, 4th Edition and have several offers related to it, including a limited-edition hardcover, an upcoming virtual workshop, and a free ebook offer.
I published Part IV of my online “Writing Workshop,” and if you ever need to write things, it’s a good, short series of articles to read through.
I’ve got articles poised on both DonJones.com and BeTheMaster.com to get you through the holidays and beyond; I hope you’ll stay tuned!
I’m holding a raffle! You can read on for the gory details (and my motivations, just so we’re clear on them), or just visit the raffle and start entering.
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