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I'm getting into the speaking / seminar end of things, and I'm kicking around ideas for some additional sessions. The four that I'm teaching on an upcoming developers conference are all more closely related to the actual development process, and they cover requirements gathering, design, estimating and QA. No problem so far, the feedback I get tells me that programmers are interested in this sort of stuff. However, there are other things that I personally think are critical if you work in the business world and I'd like to do sessions on them as well. Before I invest any time trying to put them together, though, I could use some feedback as to whether programmers would actually be interested enough to make it worthwhile. Here's some of the things I'm thinking about -
Interviewing skills:
I've hired a lot of people over the years, and it's amazing the basic stuff that doesn't seem to be common knowledge among applicants. A lot of programmers think that their technical skills are all that matters, but in fact, it's only one small part of getting the gig. I'm thinking that this type of session would probably more important to mercenaries who change jobs a lot than to someone who gets a gig and keeps it for 5 years, but I could be wrong.
Coping with company politics:
Programmers don't want to do anything but code, really. However, most of the times we get screwed (somebody else got the sexy project, the raise, the office with a door, Bad Things happened to your project, etc.) it's because somebody else played the politics game well, and we didn't (or worse still, didn't even want to try).
Creating your own projects:
This would more accurately be "learning how to sell your ideas to management", but put the word "sell" in a title and watch the programmers run for the door. Nonetheless, I've extended a lot of contracts at cool companies because I pitched them on a project I wanted to develop, and they went for it.
These are a few of what I have in mind. There's more along these lines. I know, I know, it ain't techie and sexy like "Learn ASP.NET in 24 Minutes!" but there's a lot of really top notch guys doing that sort of thing already. I know from years of personal experience that programmers' lives would be better if they had these skills, but do you think anyone would actually go to sessions like this? If you do, are there other such ideas that working class programmers would see a need for?
In the end, it doesn't matter how cool or useful a session is unless people will actually sign up for it. I don't want to burn up all my midnight oil on a project unless it has some chance of being useful. You guys are the real programmers out there making a living. I figure you're a good reality check...
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Size of company is really going to drive the interest here.
In my case a good coverage of Coping with Company Politics definitely wins. So many hidden agendas exist. To be successful with Creating your own project you need to handle the politics. If you do not, even if you get started it is amazing how inventive people are in stoping good work. As far as interviewing skills at least in my area those that are found to never stay in one place very long (say 2 years max) are not even considered by the time they hit mid 30's.
Just my 2 cents.
Good ideas are not adopted automatically.
They must be driven into practice with courageous patients. -Admiral Rickover. ...
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Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
Size of company is really going to drive the interest here.
Yeah, it's been my experience that the bigger the company, the heavier the insanity.
Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
As far as interviewing skills at least in my area those that are found to never stay in one place very long (say 2 years max) are not even considered by the time they hit mid 30's.
Er, you're making a 44 year old guy very nervous, you know...
Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
Just my 2 cents.
Thanks, man. Just the sort of feedback I was hoping for!
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Er, you're making a 44 year old guy very nervous, you know...
Only if you've had a bunch of jobs. Consultants / contract labor do not count in this comment, just those who were "employees".
Good ideas are not adopted automatically.
They must be driven into practice with courageous patients. -Admiral Rickover. ...
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
If you do, are there other such ideas that working class programmers would see a need for?
Definitley, though a lot of programmers don't realise they need this kind of thing.
I think your ideas are great, you just have to sell (there is that dirty word again) them very well to programmers.
I tried a bit of this on The Lounge a month ago, talking about peoples careers vs. their jobs and how they were ensuring that they weren't "screwed over" and "left hanging in the wind" when the time comes. It got a good response that post, so a conference could be worthwhile.
Naturally location is a problem, we are all widely disperesed, but I am sure there are plenty of programmers like us all over the world for you to teach.
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Paul Watson wrote:
Naturally location is a problem, we are all widely disperesed, but I am sure there are plenty of programmers like us all over the world for you to teach.
Yeah, but with luck, maybe someday I'll be successful enough to meet you all! Get to travel, see the world, and write it all off on my taxes? Sounds like a plan to me!
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Interviewing skills:
I've hired a lot of people over the years, and it's amazing the basic stuff that doesn't seem to be common knowledge among applicants. A lot of programmers think that their technical skills are all that matters, but in fact, it's only one small part of getting the gig. I'm thinking that this type of session would probably more important to mercenaries who change jobs a lot than to someone who gets a gig and keeps it for 5 years, but I could be wrong.
Christopher, I think you will find that you are wrong with that last sentence. As someone who has only worked for three companies over a 15 year period (12 programming) I only set up a resume and got into interview mode when I decided I had to change. 4.5 months ago I got retrenched and as you have already guessed I had no resume let alone had myself ready for interviews. I think this is a valid point you could put into your seminars. Always be prepared.
Your right about technical skills not being everything, but with the market the way it is at the moment they seem to be focusing on that more than I would have thought.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Coping with company politics:
This is required though for some reason while knowing about I refuse to get into it. I still walk in swinging and smack down every idiot in sight and then suffer the consequences later. Maybe you could reprogram me. 
Michael Martin
Australia
mjm68@tpg.com.au
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace"
- Victor Stone
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Michael Martin wrote:
Christopher, I think you will find that you are wrong with that last sentence. As someone who has only worked for three companies over a 15 year period (12 programming) I only set up a resume and got into interview mode when I decided I had to change. 4.5 months ago I got retrenched and as you have already guessed I had no resume let alone had myself ready for interviews. I think this is a valid point you could put into your seminars. Always be prepared.
Hadn't thought of it that way.
Michael Martin wrote:
I still walk in swinging and smack down every idiot in sight and then suffer the consequences later.
Well, what I do and what I feel like doing are often in conflict. I've often fantasized about keeping a baseball bat just to the right of my desk...
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Put them all together in a seminar called
How to Pick up Chicks for Programmers
and you should have a full house.
Interesting topics though - real world skills outside of coding - who would have thought we needed those?
Dave Huff
There are no small projects - only young ones.
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Dave Huff wrote:
How to Pick up Chicks for Programmers
Dave, if you find someone to teach that seminar, you'll have to elbow me for a front row seat!
Dave Huff wrote:
Interesting topics though - real world skills outside of coding - who would have thought we needed those?
Yeah, that's what I've come to find. When I first started doing this I thought I could just go to work, crank the tunes and kick out some code. It was a real shock when I realized how much corporate b******t I had to put up with in the course of any given day. One of the things I put in the chapter on estimating is that the average 8 hour day only sees 5 to 6 hours of actual coding. In some environments, I'd be delighted if I got even that much time. That's when I decided to start fighting back. I may win, I may lose (I usually win), but I'll go down swinging!
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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>Coping with company politics:
Yes, I'd like to know how to detect it, react to it, understand it, maybe even play it - this is the one area of work that is guaranteed to spoil life at work every now and then.
Ev
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>Coping with company politics:
Yes, I'd like to know how to detect it, react to it, understand it, maybe even play it - this is the one thing that is guaranteed to spoil life at work every now and then.
Ev
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I am a 24 yr old , on my first job . Have to constantly go against 40+ yr old mgmt types in the project . I wish thr was less politics and more sensible chaps up thr .
Since the world aint gonna change , I think i bttr do .And thats why I think ur book is so good .
Regards,
Kapil
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I'm currently posting anonymously because my boss knows about CP and I don't want him to know that I'm having any thoughts about leaving the company. It may seem underhanded but I have my reasons.
I've been with my current employer since '98 and have been working on and off because my university is about a 7 hour drive away from the business.
I'm starting to feel a bit annoyed at my employer though. So far in 2002 I've received a single paycheck for roughly 1/5 of what I had worked. In 2001 I was shorted about 1/2 of the money I was owed. I think I've always been understanding when it came to keep down my asking for checks when money is tight, but so far it hasn't let up and I don't know how much longer I can go 
Now I've got this wacky idea that maybe I should just start up my own business, I've already got a couple people interesting in helping and I live far enough away that I wouldn't be competing with my employer. My dad and I have been going out to peoples homes to fix their computers for quite a few years now so I would already have a customer base.
I would also be thinking about targetting the local businesses around my area for new PCs and (of course) custom software.
For an idea of the type of area this is, there is only one PC repair shop in this county and it has a reputation for screwing up more computers than fixing them. I don't know of any company in the area that offers custom software to businesses and I think most of them rely on places like Dell and Gateway for their workstations and servers.
I'd also be interesting in keeping ties to my current employer since technically I'm just an independent contractor I would like to continue to provide software services to them, however I want out of the entire mess the company is currently in.
And to top it all off my employer doesn't understand that creating a program isn't as simple as creating the gui and its done. I've tried a few times to get them to understand this but it isn't happening.
Now the reason I'm posting. Should I go ahead and start this or should I stick it out and work for essentially nothing until the company turns around?
Is my post long enough yet?
A CP Regular 
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A CP Regular wrote:
So far in 2002 I've received a single paycheck for roughly 1/5 of what I had worked. In 2001 I was shorted about 1/2 of the money I was owed.
You're a helluva lot nicer guy than I am, I'll give you that. Programming is my passion, but it's also my livelihood. Screw with my money just once, and you'll be trying to teach your Cocker Spanial to debug the code that's left behind. No money - no coding. Period. If you don't pay me what I'm owed, on precisely the agreed upon dates, you'll never even know there's a problem until you wake up one day and I'm simply not there. If you give people like this fair warning, they'll try to make life difficult for you every time. If you can't trust them on something as fundamental as money, you can't trust them at all.
A CP Regular wrote:
Now I've got this wacky idea that maybe I should just start up my own business
Well, if you can afford the financial gamble, I'd say go for it. Just be advised that all startups are a huge risk. The mortality rate for first year business failures is extremely high. Nonetheless, many have done so and succeeded. I owned a software company for several years in the early 90s. I didn't get rich, but I made a decent living on my own terms.
They say that you shouldn't start a business unless you can go without income for the first year (that's not as extreme as you might think). Can you? If not, you're rolling the dice on your ability to eat and pay the rent.
Of course, an additional option is to simply get another job - one that pays you on time, without question. Start up your new company on the side, in your spare time. When it can pay your bills, make the transition.
As for maintaining business relationships with your current employer, ask yourself this question - if it's hard to get payment on time now, when you're there every day, how much harder is it going to be to get your invoices paid when he's a customer? In other words, what, are you nuts?
If you don't depend on the money you get from programming to pay your bills and eat, then screw this guy and write code that you want to write, just for the fun of it. If you do depend on the money you make as a programmer, then screw this guy and quietly go out and find another job. Why quietly? No point terminating one source of income until you have another to replace it. There is no dishonor in self defense.
And just for the record, while it's true that I'm a mercenary and will never play fair with those who don't play fair with me, I also believe in living and working with honor and integrity. When I take a gig, I give them 100% (sometimes more) and always do my best to act ethically and in the company's best interests. When it's time to go (happens sooner or later no matter how good the gig is), I make sure they have notice and are taken care of, and leave the door open for them to call me at home after I'm gone if they're in a jam with my code. That's always paid off for me. In the past 12 years, I've only had to cover my tail a couple of times. The rest has been an exercise in good karma - they treat me right, and I bend over backwards to take good care of them. And the other couple of times? Well, the details certainly aren't on my resume. One thing you can count on, though. I sure didn't give them fair warning.
That's the problem with this business. Lots of absolutely killer programmers out there, but many of them don't know how to cover their tails in the business world. I just hate seeing honest and talented people get taken advantage of. Perhaps it shows...
So, how's that for long?
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
You're a helluva lot nicer guy than I am, I'll give you that. Programming is my passion, but it's also my livelihood.
If it were a "normal" job I would have walked out the first time it happened. But this is the one thing I love to do, hence my stupidity in staying for so long. This wasn't a problem thats been on-going, it started very early last year, then got back to normal, now it seems that the bottom has fellen out.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Well, if you can afford the financial gamble, I'd say go for it.
Personally I don't have much of a gamble, I live at home because college costs too much (and work doesn't pay often enough) for me to live on my own. My dad first suggested the idea so I'm pretty sure my parents will back me.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
In other words, what, are you nuts?
Temporary bout of insanity?  Very good point though.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
If you don't depend on the money you get from programming to pay your bills and eat, then screw this guy and write code that you want to write, just for the fun of it.
Since I live at home there isn't much in the way of bills. I pay for my car and gas plus any of my extra stuff (books and entertainment). Aside from that I don't use much money. So I may just do that for a bit.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
So, how's that for long?
*clap, clap, clap*
Thanks for taking the time to write *so* much
- CP Regular
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Hey, man.
Saw your post below that you're notifying your boss Monday. Good for you. You're fortunate in that you don't have a lot of bills to pay. So there's absolutely no reason that you should let someone take advantage of you. Besides, if you don't have to go in to a (somewhat non paying) job, you can spend all day playing with .NET, right?
Give 'em hell, and don't let him buffalo you into staying. He'll try every promise, threat and plea he can come up with to keep you there. Don't fall for it.
In the vernacular of the streets, "Money talks. B******t walks."
A CP Regular wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to write *so* much
Hey, we programmers have to stick together!
Good luck!
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Besides, if you don't have to go in to a (somewhat non paying) job, you can spend all day playing with .NET, right?
Yep
I do need some cash so I can purchase VS.NET, I tried doing it with just the command line tools and my trusty EditPlus, but the Win/Web Forms designer is worth $200 to me
I'm going to take my dad's advice and put an ad in the local paper this week offering in home service pc upgrades. Being in a very rural area no one offers that service so I should be able to work out fairly well. If that doesn't work out Burger King and McDonald's are just a block away
James
Sonork ID: 100.11138 - Hasaki
"Smile your little smile, take some tea with me awhile.
And every day we'll turn another page.
Behind our glass we'll sit and look at our ever-open book,
One brown mouse sitting in a cage."
"One Brown Mouse" from Heavy Horses, Jethro Tull 1978
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James T. Johnson wrote:
Besides, if you don't have to go in to a (somewhat non paying) job, you can spend all day playing with .NET, right?
Yep
Okay, so is this the emoticon that shows me green with envy?
James T. Johnson wrote:
If that doesn't work out Burger King and McDonald's are just a block away
In my previous lifetime, I spent 10 years in marketing (which is how I learned to survive corporate war games). After one particularly interesting client, I spent the night drinking a bottle of tequila with my company officers and swearing to get out of the business. After that, I closed the company, crashed with some friends for a few months & studied C night & day. To earn spare money, I picked up whatever playing gigs I could (slim) and otherwise did the office cleaning thing at night. Let me tell you, after 10 years in marketing, it felt good to do an honest day's work!
James T. Johnson wrote:
I'm going to take my dad's advice and put an ad in the local paper this week offering in home service pc upgrades.
I seem to change careers about every ten years or so. I don't plan it, it just kinda works out that way. Consequently, I strongly believe that anyone can change directions in life if they're willing to put some effort into it and believe in themselves.
That's how I know your business will be a huge success - go for it, man!
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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A CP Regular wrote:
ForumWork Issues / Certification / Resumes
Subject:Re: Taking the plunge
Sender:A CP Regular
Date:19:23 14 Mar '02
I'm currently posting anonymously because my boss knows about CP and I don't want him to know that I'm having any thoughts about leaving the company. It may seem underhanded but I have my reasons.
I've been with my current employer since '98 and have been working on and off because my university is about a 7 hour drive away from the business.
I'm starting to feel a bit annoyed at my employer though. So far in 2002 I've received a single paycheck for roughly 1/5 of what I had worked. In 2001 I was shorted about 1/2 of the money I was owed. I think I've always been understanding when it came to keep down my asking for checks when money is tight, but so far it hasn't let up and I don't know how much longer I can go
You think if your boss reads this, he won't be able to figure out it's you ?
A CP Regular wrote:
Now the reason I'm posting. Should I go ahead and start this or should I stick it out and work for essentially nothing until the company turns around?
If they are not paying you, and especially if you don't have a NDA that excludes the possibility of you doing other work, you should give it a go.
Christian
The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little.
"I'm thinking of getting married for companionship and so I have someone to cook and clean." - Martin Marvinski, 6/3/2002
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