NFJS COSS 2008 1st Day Wrap Up

It is the morning after the first day of the No Fluff Just Stuff Central Ohio Software Symposium 2008 and I am writing this blog at 6:05 am because I am still so mentally stimulated I could not sleep at all last night so I gave up trying. I hope it does not catch up with me during today's sessions.

I really enjoyed Jared Richardson's, author of Ship It! A Pratical Guide to Successful Software Projects, keynote called Career 2.0. He announced he was writing a book of the same name that he expects to finish in January. In his keynote, he encouraged us to take control of our careers by improving our visibility in the industry. Some of his suggestions for getting started were writing, speaking and contributing to open source. He recommended setting goals but starting with simple steps like writing a blog, giving lunch and learns in your office or contributing documentation to your favorite open source project or maybe one you want to learn more about.

I have to agree with Jared completely. During my exit interview from college with my advisor, I was asked what I wanted to do with my career. I told her I don't know. But I did know there were two things I did not want to do. I did not want to write and I did not want to teach. 12 years, 4 books, several articals, numerous technical classses, many conferences and COJUG presentations I can say that was a very narrow minded view. I have found those are two of my favorite things to do and doing them have opened so many doors including free trips to Europe. I also discovered that contributing and observing open sources has really improved my disipline as a developer. It has allowed me to be exposed to more projects and practices then I could even be exposed to in my consulting practice. It allows me to see more of what works and what doesn't.

I also attended Scott Davis's, author of Groovy Recipes, Blue Pill and Red Pill presentations I had heard so much about from Java One. I was not dissappointed. I think it was a great introduction to Groovy for Java developers.