EP007: Jeff Bowdin – Director, Dad of Daughters, and Dynamo of the 80%.
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In episode 007 of the Angle Free IT podcast, I sat down to get a lesson in priorities and reality from IT Director Jeff Bowden. Jeff is very saged with his experience in technology and we met online in a few forums in which we both help people out with career questions. We talked about a lot of things, but my highlights were diversity and inclusion, Prioritization and the 80% rule that Jeff runs his shop with. I know that I am better for having met Jeff and having gained some of his wisdom, and I am sure you will be too.
00:00 Intro
03:00 Cyclical nature in computing.
07:00 How remote skills are key.
10:00 Degree vs No Degree thoughts.
13:00 Skills Jeff sees as declining and losing their relevance.
22:00 Customer Service is what we end up doing.
29:00 Interview skills for noobs.
31:00 how to clarify your priorities.
38:00 Branching out to determine who the important people in the company are – get outside of technology (mention workplace poker).
40:30 Who some of the most important people in the company are – it’s not who you think it is.
43:30 How Jeff finds mentorship.
47:00 Pivoting and making the jump with both feet.
50:30 The 80% rule explained. Balance and Prioiritzation.
53:00 Jeff gives Preston an unexpected huge compliment.
That cool website Jeff Mentioned is HERE.
Welcome to The Angle Free IT podcast.
I used to work with this guy. He was awesome. He was aggressive. Sometimes he was a flat-out jerk. But I looked at his continual successes and never seemed to grasp WHY he was successful and why I was significantly less successful than he was in our organization. I thought ‘Oh, he probably just learned how to do this in college’! Nope turns out he just worked at a college before here – never graduated from there.
This pillar, #6 extends outside of work as well as inside. Make sure you are constantly surrounded by high-quality people. So how do you go about this at work? First off, say you’ve got like 10 people in your department. Find the 3 smartest people and see if you can be put on projects with them, or accompany them. Go eat lunch with them. See what things they’re reading and working on – are they things that would benefit you as well?
Maybe you work solo or have work with what I would off the cuff dub ‘the actively disengaged’ employee. Even President Camacho from Idiocracy understood this concept, so if he gets it – we should too! Make sure you are AROUND people you want to be around all the time, and act the way you want to be, or grow into career-wise.
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