John Crickett’s Post

Over 30 million copies of How to Win Friends and Influence People have been sold worldwide. Yet too many of us still don’t apply two of the simplest lessons: 1. People crave the feeling of importance. If you make someone feel important and they will think well of you. If you diminish someone’s importance and they will dislike you. 2. Praise and appreciation are more effective ways to get people to do what you want than orders. People are chronically under-appreciated. As a result, those of us who take it upon ourselves to really appreciate people have a huge advantage. You can lear more about this in today’s Developing Skills newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/g38jrpej

“The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.” — Dennis Ritchie I agree! Writing programs based of real-world applications has been been how I’ve learned every programming language I’ve ever known. I’ve pulled together a list of those programs, along with guidance on how to step through the process of developing them, as the basis of my Coding Challenges newsletter. So if you want to learn a new programming language, please check it out. Link in my profile and the comments.

Want to know how to build a personal brand if you don’t like being in the spotlight? And how to overcome the fear of being in the public eye. These are concerns many software engineers have about building a personal brand online. And I understand them, I’ve had them too. The reality however is you won’t be in the public eye, or the spotlight. We just feel like we will. And that’s perfectly normal. In fact it’s a recognised psychological phenomenon in which we tend to believe we are being noticed more than we really are. It’s even got a name: the spotlight effect. Researchers have shown that we drastically over-estimate how many other people are noticing us or the impact we are having on others. My personal experience matches that. For example: 👉 In the 21 years I’ve been on LinkedIn, I’ve never had someone who was interviewing me actually look at my LinkedIn profile. Even though it’s on my CV. 👉 People who know and work with me often don’t know about my posts, even when we’re connected on LinkedIn. 👉 In 30 years of publishing software and writing on the Internet, I’ve only ever been recognised once in public. So I understand the fear, I’ve felt it and I’ve experienced that like so many things in life it’s not as bad as we expect. My advice, feel the fear and do it anyway. If you’d like to know more, about how I’ve built my personal brand on LinkedIn, I’m teaching what I know, and what I’ve done in my upcoming course: https://lnkd.in/e-aAWw32 P.S. the early bird 25% discount ends today! To get the discount use the code: EARLYBIRDJUL24.

Greenfield software development is often worthless. Maintenance software development is always valuable. The best software engineers focus their time on what is valuable. It's maintenance if it is no longer greenfield. It's no longer greenfield once it has users.

7 simple ways to pick topics to write about as a software engineer. 1. Write about what you are currently working on or the technology you are currently working with. Share some lessons learned, hints or tips. Think about what would have helped you if you’d known it before you started the work/started using the technology. 2. Write about a topic you’d like to learn or are currently learning. Share your learning journey and ask others for feedback, advise, guidance to help you on your journey. 3. Share some of the stories from your software engineering journey. We all love to read stories especially if we can relate and/or learn from them. 4. Curate useful resources on a topic you know (or for point 2, a topic you’re learning about). 5. Summarise other useful resource in an area you know well or in an area you’re learning, i.e. write a summary of a book, podcast or conference talk. 6. Reflect on a mistake you’ve made or a lesson you’ve learned. Help someone else avoid making the mistake or shortcut their learning. 7. Write to yourself, or who you were a year or two ago. Share things you wish you had known then, chances are there are other people on a similar journey to you, but a few steps behind you. If you’d like to know more, I’ll be sharing how I pick topics, write content and build my personal brand on LinkedIn in my upcoming course: https://lnkd.in/e-aAWw32 P.S. As an early bird offer you can get 25% off until July 10th using the code: EARLYBIRDJUL24.

“We want an Engineering Manager to be the interface between the DevOps team and the Development team” said the recruiter on an introductory call. He went on to say that there were problems with the communication and collaboration between the two teams, so the business was looking to hire an Engineering Manager to be the interface between them. There’s a lot wrong with this picture. Firstly, DevOps is a set of practices and processes not a team. Far too many organisations are just renaming the Ops/IT team as DevOps and like a Cargo Cult hoping that somehow that’ll lead to gifts from above. Secondly if you have a problem with communication between two teams you need to reduce the barriers between the two. Introducing a third party into the mix will just make the situation worse! To fix intra team communication: 1. Work with the teams to build a sense of shared mission. 2. Encourage the teams to provide context alongside their message. 3. Build empathy between the teams, make sure they see the challenges that each team faces from the perspective of that team. 4. Use a common language, avoid jargon. 5. Get involved in each other’s processes to ensure there is alignment. 6. Ensure consistent communication. 7. Set the tone – focus on collaboration and joint wins. 8. Celebrate those wins. 9. Encourage feedback on the level of communication and areas for improvement 10. Foster trust between the teams. 11. Create an environment of psychological safety. 12.Provide an informal venue. Don’t put a manager in between them!

The 9 most commonly asked questions about my Personal Branding Challenge and their answers. Q: Who is the course aimed at? A: Software engineers who want to build a personal brand to advance their career or perhaps launch their own business. Q: OK, but at what stage of their personal branding journey? A: At any stage. I use the same approach now as I did when I started out. I’ll teach you the same approach making it equally relevant to beginners and those with an established brand and audience. Q: Will you personally be available for feedback John? A: Yes, I am already active on the Discord server everyday and even though we haven’t started yet I’m still interacting with the members of the first cohort and those joining the next cohort can join immediately. Q: Are there any live calls? A: The course is designed to be async so you can fit it around your schedule. However after feedback from the previous cohort I’m going to incorporate an optional weekly live discussion. The time will change to cover the geographically dispersed nature of the cohort. Q: Will you cover how to grow a mailing list? A: Yes, I’ll cover how I’ve grown Coding Challenges to 59k+ subscribers. Q: Why a cohort course? A: I have benefited hugely from sharing ideas and collaborating with others, I want to kick start that collaboration for the course. I hope the members of the cohort will become a community that shares ideas and helps each other long after the 30 days are over. So far there’s some great collaboration and sharing of ideas happening from the first cohort. Q: An hour per day is a big commitment, can I batch it up? A: It will be less than an hour per day and you can batch up watching/reading the lessons and/or writing posts. You will get the best results by being active on LinkedIn for about 30 minutes per day (writing one post and engaging with others). Q: Will I have access to subsequent cohorts? A: I don’t know, because I don’t know if I will run any more cohorts after this one. Members of the first cohort will have access to this one. Q: Will this course tell me how to get rich? A: No, it’s about personal branding using LinkedIn. You should be able to leverage your personal brand to make more money - either through a pay rise, new job or through creating your own business. If you’d like to know more about the 30 day LinkedIn personal branding challenge details are here: https://lnkd.in/e-aAWw32 If you’ve got any more questions please ask away in the comments. P.S. As an early bird offer you can get 25% off until July 10th using the code: EARLYBIRDJUL24.

Unless you’re going to stay a junior forever, it’s actually quite hard to avoid taking on a leadership role.