And so it begins

Hi everyone, and first thanks for being here. I’m totally excited about starting a new blog and doing what I can to give back to those who share my craft and my passions. I’ve been wanting to make this happen for several years now and this year was the year.

My goal is to get Jeff’s Corner back online again. It may not be the most attractive site I’ve built but that’s ok. The initial launch is quality content and let the rest come with time.

To put things in perspective I’ve been in management, I’ve been in the trenches, I’ve been around some AMAZING Rock Star programmers and, well, some not so much. Several years back it finally hit me what makes a person great and I mean truly amazing at their craft and that is too teach it.

We all know this right? After all, we see people teach their skill every day or we have experienced it more than we realize. Think back to a class or training and maybe you recall studying with a group and as soon as you began teaching others the material it truly starts to take hold and become almost second nature. Ok, maybe not literally but you know what I mean.

Not like this was new information to me or anything but means I could now quantify and separate amazing from great talent and personalities. Like I said, I’ve been around a lot of great people. I’ve also hired a lot of great people. I’ve used terms like “A players vs. B players” where an ‘A’ player is a total rock star and could do anything I needed and was able to architect some masterful code. A ‘B’ player was someone who could do just about the same but couldn’t think outside the box.

Given the brief definitions ‘A’ and ‘B’ level players, I never really considered someone who was just off the charts and what that meant. Given my new revelation I now can wrap my mind around it and more importantly something, for me personally, to aspire too and that’s teaching your craft; sharing what we know within our own personal domain.

Now, what does that mean? To me it means putting myself out there and not only sharing but teaching. This doesn’t mean we can answer every question but it does mean we know how to find or facilitate the answer.

If we look back over our career peeling back the layers of work and organizational structure, we’ll begin to see repetition. It’s these repetitions which define our personal domains and the work we have refined from performing over and over and over.

Code for example, every time I start a new application the first thing I do is start copying and pasting. Or a proposal in response to an RFP, that’s right copy and paste. Why? Because I have proven those actions have worked over and over again.

This is the fun awesome material I want to share with you.

Ok, we all have houses to maintain, kids’ recitals or sports and hobbies that “keep us out of trouble” right? Well this includes me. There’s no way I could post every couple days or even weekly but it will be regular. Remember, my goal is quality over quantity.