Month: March 2018

EP012: Jason Abbott – Dropout to Director with a bunch of barriers.

Episode 12 on deck!  One of the coolest things I get to do is catch up with people I’ve fanboy’d over.  Jason Abbott probably had very little idea how much he inspired or helped me along in my career when we worked together, probably because I was fairly aloof and terrible at troubleshooting when he first met me.  Nevertheless, he took me under his wing, even when I wasn’t ‘his guy’ and taught me a lot of invaluable skills (which he had been taught from Strata Chalup – Episode 8). We talked about his willingness to just put himself out there and attempt stuff when no one else would, and how that’s propelled him along in his career.

Recently Jason Abbott moved into a Director of IT position – and I can’t commend his CIO highly enough for his selection.  He will do amazing there, I’m sure, and I’m very happy for my friend!

00:00 Intro – Chicago to Atlanta for 10-Base-2 ??
04:30 The moment that could’ve held Jason down.
08:00 WGU and mention of a secret episode I haven’t released as of this episode!
15:00 The Strata Chalup connection from LISA.
18:00 The origins of the ‘SNMP’ framework (at LISA, in fact).
24:00 Jason’s lateral move, and the Lippizaner Philosophy.
30:30 Honesty and frankness with a new role.
32:00 PILLAR 1 ABIDES.
34:00 A new OSI model mnemonic for you all!
37:00 Abandoning old for the new – maybe not ALWAYS the best solution.
41:30 EXPECT scripting and the Israeli bet agains Jason and Preston.
44:30 Why putting yourself out there is worth it.
48:00 Understanding how a crazy person thinks and getting a diversity of thought, and Pillar 6.
52:00 Unbidden – Jason brings up my favorite internet spot – meetup, and one I hadn’t thought about – Toastmasters.
55:30 Pillar 1 – AGAIN!
56:40 The Strata Chalup Episode – related to Jason.

EP011: Jeff Snyder on why coaching is not ‘Crazy Hippie’ stuff.

 

I met Jeff Snyder many years ago when I did my own pivot into Network Security from a straight networking position. I was really ‘stuck’ in making progress moving from one discipline (networking and plumbing of the network) to another discipline (security policy and implementation). Jeff gave me tips – unpaid and unbidden – that helped me shift my mindset and land my first consulting job that spanned what I knew (networking and VoIP) with what I wanted to do (Network Security). In the years that have passed since we first connected on LinkedIn, Jeff’s coaching practice has matured, and now he even has famous clients such as the producer of the Angle Free IT podcast. This episode is chock full of actionable changes we can make in our careers – defintely a must listen.

00:00 Intro to Jeff Snyder and Jeff’s Origin Story
04:30 The double sided coin of getting into security.
07:00 Phone interview skills and prep.
10:00 The ‘one’ trick for listening and answering a question without screwing yourself out of a good answer.
12:00 In person interview tricks (get a pen, pause to take notes – see 10:00 …)
17:00 Seek to ‘learn’ before you begin to ‘tell’.
20:00 Counteroffer advice.
27:00 What is a coach and how to find a good one.
34:00 Becoming a ‘Trusted Advisor’ vs ‘The Smartest Person in the Room’.
39:00 StrengthsFinder and why it might matter.
56:00 Coaching vs Motivation.

You can find Jeff at his website HERE.  I work with him and highly recommend him.  I know I have surveyed my audience and one common theme that came up again and again from more seior level people was : What now??  Jeff can help you with that.  I probably can too, but if you’re in his hyperniche of Sr -> Director or Director -> CxO, he’s your guy.

EP010: AI and MVI talk with Patrick Barnard from sites such as gamersloot.net

Hey there Navigators!  I had the absolute fortune to catch Patrick Barnard at an internet cafe between his two latest sojourn trips to the Philipines.  Patrick is a fearless entrepreneur who has made some pretty phenomenal companies throughout the years.  I will say, the time we connected the audio was a bit funky with background noise – BUT – the interview was SO GREAT.  Bonus points to anyone who DM’s me the funniest background outbreak!  We talked about Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills, the automation displacement crisis that is looming, and talk about things such as minimum viable income for those displaced by the AI revolution.

00:00 Who is Patrick Barnard?

08:00 Why Patrick created Gamersloot, the largest distributor of World of Warcraft at one point – including countries such as Antarctica and Moldova.

10:00 Outsourcing game leveling in Romania, and cultural backlash.

14:00 AI as the next ‘Internet’.

17:00 What if AI could hire people versus a human?  Patrick sees the Pros vs Cons.

20:00 Job candidate differentiators from a guy who is a potential sensor, vs HR manager.

26:00 Why you should be eager to learn, and not limiting yourself.

30:00 Having an Idea, Having a Partner in business, and trusting others with the execution of said idea.

34:00 Facing fears, and why Patrick calls himself fearless.

41:00 What MBO can do, and how you have to look for quality when you use it (fiverr as an example).

44:00 Minimum Guaranteed Income and other ideas that Patrick thing ‘are not crazy at all’.

50:00 Bonus internet cafe background craziness.

EP009: Jim Manico – Trainer from Manicode.com, Developer, and OWASP speaker on secure coding.

Jim Manico and I connected a few years ago through some of the OWASP meetings he presented at in Denver.  He was talking about cross-site scripting prevention, and in the brief training, I knew that Jim would be a great person to know if I ever needed to educate people.  Fast forward a few years, and here we are talking about secure coding and how to train the world of developers that they’re security engineers first now.  Jim and I talked about Manicode and his journey of owning his own business, and what that process has been like for him.

00:00 Intro.
04:00 Going solo and Pillar 4 makes an appearance.
07:00 How to code.
10:00 How to talk to your security folks if you’re a developer.
22:00 Software development is a team sport.
24:00 Jim’s career goals.
30:00 Times Jim’s made a pivot successfully.
33:00 Mentorship and PIllar 6.
37:00 Handling burnout.
39:00 Jim loves LEMUR – The certificate orchestration suite from Netflix.

Tools that Jim touched on: OWASP ASVs, OWASP Cheat Sheet Series, and last but certainly not least Jim’s Training website, Manicode.com.  If you need any coding training done – I can’t recommend Jim highly enough.  Fidelity is measured by small steps over many years, and Jim is who he is today because he’s the same guy I met years ago, only better.

EP008: Small Goat Farm to Massive Server Farms with Storied Developer, Author, Blogger, and Speaker Strata Chalup.

Ep-008-Strata-Chalup-Author-Blogger-Superstar-and-Speaker

 

Today on this episode of Angle Free IT I got together with Strata Chalup, who is a Developer, Author, Blogger, and Speaker from many conferences, including the LISA conference.  Strata has been an influential person in my career because of her framework on troubleshooting.  I got it from a friend who saw her speech at LISA and have gone over it many times with people.  If you’re interested, I have a link to it below the show notes.  We touch on Interview Strategies, Solopreneuring, and Strata’s dynamic career pivots.

01:00: Intro with Strata.
04:30: When to go solo consulting versus employee.
06:00: How to skill build by learning frameworks.
07:45: Strata’s how to troubleshoot presentation and what impact it had on Preston’s career. Logic vs knowledge.
10:30: Diversity and inclusion – today versus yesterday – and what still needs to change.  Talk about Pillar 1 as well.
16:30: Imposter sydrome and battling it.
19:45: Joining IT when you’re not fresh out of school.
21:00: ‘Just’ is not just a phrase. It’s a nightmare.
23:00: Conduit – the race to the bottom price and how it affects Tech. Your job is to find out what is going “to be tires” in a few years and stay away from that.
24:30: Mentorship discussions, talk about Pillar 6.
27:00: Building a brand via values.
29:00: Things to avoid when looking to interview – ‘You should be able to explain a technical answer on a subway if you have one stop’.
31:00: Thoughts on pivots, and how Strata has accomplished pivots. PM-ing vs hands on.
34:30: Guest turnover – things Strata Loves: Arduino, and Adafruit. Also – super cool book Vehicles

You can find the latest book Strata Co-Authored Here.

Later on, we talked about Arduino programming – and I found a great starter set for people interested here.  For small Arduino parts, I love the Colorado company Spark Fun, which can be found at http://www.sparkfun.com.

As well, we touched on a cool robotics book from MIT that Strata was talking about can be found here.

EP007: Jeff Bowdin – Director, Dad of Daughters, and Dynamo of the 80%.

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.

EP006: UX Design with disruptor and trainer Tiffany Eaton – Why does UX even matter?

Sometimes, actually – let me rephrase that, a lot of times I know I want to talk to a guest but I have no idea what I’ll gain from them – a lot like UX.  What is UX?  User Experience within a piece of software.  It’s something companies spend A LOT of time on, or don’t – and then fail.  In this episode, we are lucky enough to snag a few cycles of brain time with Tiffany Eaton, UX designer, Medium Author, and upcoming grad/disruptor in the UX field.  Tiffany tells us what the main challenges UX attempts to fix, and how the goals of a UX designer flow.  Come join us for this great conversation – especially if you’ve ever used an app – so all of us, really.

3:00: What is UX?
4:00: Tiffany’s Interning experience, and talking about networking to get the first one.
7:00: Real world projects versus constraints within school – the shock of reality.
11:00: ‘Do I Belong’ game
12:00: Tools of the trade
17:45: Interview prep, and deep researching tips for prep from Tiffany
19:00: STAR method (this was new to Preston – it’s a cool method).
https://www.vawizard.org/wiz-pdf/STAR_Method_Interviews.pdf
22:00: Tiffany educates me on why she feels design doesn’t have nearly as many curmudgeonly folks – it’s just their nature of designing new stuff all the time.
24:00: Millennials don’t care about work that doesn’t matter.
26:00: UX market entry tips. Design of everything book. side projects.
29:00: Deep dive into how UX and programmers actually work.
32:30: Tiffany’s mantra of ‘Not holding users accountable because they don’t think like we do’.
34:00: GAMING TIME! Tiffany’s game and arcade experience, and the specific game she is an aficionado about.

If you’d like to find Tiffany online, go find her online at the following locations:

http://skl.sh/2nal9ZT (Tiffany’s class on UX research)
http://tiffanyeaton.com/asian-sterotype-story-game (Tiffany’s stereotype story game)
https://medium.com/@tiffanyeaton (Tiffany’s Medium account)
http://tiffanyeaton.com (Tiffany’s website)

Podcast Automation Stuff – V1.0 – The upshot

I create and program the things, and then I work on automation.

The trajectory of most people in technology, especially those who are especially adept at moving up in the world includes automation.  It should come as no surprise to those of you who listen to my podcast, that I love my podcast, but that I HATE wasting time.  Automation and streamlining things are what comes first to my brain when I started working on my podcast.

When I first started to prep my podcast, I was a bit naive:

Yeah… About that… No – I was wrong.

I thought I would give you a peek behind the scenes of what I’m finding out is a straight up friggin’ pipeline for a podcast.

So, Imma CI/CD this thing and here is where I’m going to display my findings.

But Why?

One thing you’ll hear me say throughout my blog and podcast is “I can make more money, but I can’t make more time“.  Because I travel a lot for work, I absolutely disdain wasting my time on the weekends doing what I feel like is busywork.  And, can I share something with you:  I have about 2% passion for post-prep on audio and social media.  But I don’t want the podcast to suck, and I want to have my guests reach and inspire a greater audience.  Fortunately, I’ve done so many audio things off and on, as well as a ton of Adobe products.  So I have the ingrained skills to figure out how to do stuff, and then the iterative skills to do them faster.

So, without further adieu, let me share my work-in-progress of a flow map of how I’m starting to get everything arranged.  The automation flows are as follows:

  1. Guest Inquiry (only semi-automated at this point)
  2. Guest booking automation.
  3. Recording automation.
  4. Post Prep Audio Automation.
  5. Post Prep Graphic Automation.
  6. Episode Posting (can’t really be automated on the blog … yet)
  7. Promote via laptop.
  8. Promote via mobile (Instagram, Vero, other methods that require mobile only uploads).

EP005: From EVE to TAM, Rick Chan on how Networking Has Been Key in His Tech Career.

Rick and I connected over a subreddit we both tend to hang out in – /r/ITCareerQuestions.  As the owner of the most popular 5 posts, he clearly has a lot of wisdom to share.  We talk about leveraging networking from even seemingly trivial things like online games to build your network.  Networking is a HUGE part of Rick’s success – and it came from a source that may seem unconventional.  We then went on to talk the evolution of the data center and what we think will be important skills-wise in a few years.

04:00: How Rick sees getting ahead – Networking With Humans. Even EVE Online can get you jobs – Rick’s proof.

12:00: Interview skills discussions.

24:00: Not boxing yourself in.

27:00: Career progression and figuring out – the journey is the destination.

30:00: We talk Hyperconvergence.

35:00: Talking CBT training.

40:00: Rick’s money is where his mouth is – Gaming wise! Check this out:

42:00: The ‘pick a practice’ quiz that Rick wrote.

 

We had a great time chatting, and I hope to meet him in person sometime – maybe I’ll shoot up to Calgary to ski!

You can find Rick on LinkedIn.

You can check out Rick’s quiz Right Here.