VISION

Self-Marketing for Software Developers: Becoming a Better Developer

2010-07-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

SmartMoney.com interviewed me this week for their article Web Sites Find Security Seals a Boon for Business. The article talks about ways online merchants, specifically small businesses, can use security seals to legitimize their websites in the eyes of potential customers.

It occurred to me that displaying seals doesn’t change how a website operates; the seals are all about marketing. They’re all about playing the game of looking legitimate to potential customers.

In this case, standards and seals are a good thing: they allow people to quickly verify if a website uses SSL or is reasonably “hacker safe.” This is helpful when you’re shopping for that antique Platypus Beanie Baby and wind up on a site you’ve never heard of. Seeing the Verisign seal probably gives you a bit of warm fuzziness.

Standards
In high school you may have worked your butt off for grades or a good score on the SAT (a standardized test taken by high school seniors in the U.S.). The fact is, you were smart whether or not you did these things, but you had to do them to prove it. You may not have realized, but you were marketing yourself to colleges. And the best way to do this is to fit their mold of standardized tests and grades; to play the game.

When you go to a job interview you already know you can do the job. The entire process of creating a resume, making it look pretty, putting on a suit, using your best manners, and writing code on a white board is all packaging. It’s not really you; it’s the best possible view of you that you bring to the game.

I have a friend who is a fantastic developer (I mean it; he’s top-notch). But he has trouble finding contract work. All of the online marketplaces are filled with commodity development shops. The temp houses take a huge cut and are always trying to beat down his rate. So a guy who’s worth $100+/hour winds up making $70. He’s worth more, but he hasn’t figured out how to differentiate himself from every other developer in the universe.

Self-Marketing Rule #1: It’s a sad statement, but even from early on in your career, knowing how to market yourself will do more for your earnings and reputation than becoming better at what you do. This is not a license to be a crappy developer, but an imperative to become a better self-marketer.

The Basics
Self-marketing, also known by the more sinister name “self-promotion,” works wonders for both salaried employees and freelancers. In both cases the bigger your name, the more recognition you’ll receive from those around you, the more money you will make, and the more opportunities that will come your way.

I receive a lot of email asking how to get a raise, and how to get around the developer salary cap, and here’s the simple answer: set yourself apart.

Here are a few approaches to doing that; there are certainly more (please post a comment with your ideas):

Get Certified. A good first step.
Write technical articles. Print or online; it doesn’t matter. Scott Mitchell and Rocky Lhotka have built careers using this approach in the .NET world.
Speak. Start by speaking at local developer events.
Blog. Joel Spolsky is the poster child for making a name for yourself as a blogger.
Win Awards. Microsoft’s MVP and ASPInsider awards come to mind. I’m not sure if there are equivalents on the Java/PHP side.
Contribute to Open Source Projects. Nothing is more impressive than saying you implemented feature X in a popular blogging engine.
Release your own free applications or utilities. Have you heard of LINQPad or Reflector? Suffice to say these developers have earned major clout in their circles.

Self-Marketing Rule #2: Start now. It will take a long time to get going (think years, not months), and the sooner you start the sooner you’ll reap the rewards.

A New Game
The approaches I mentioned above are good to know when you’re starting out in the game of self-marketing. But some people don’t play the game at all. They re-write the rules to create a new one.

A girl from my high school didn’t get her diploma because she refused to take P.E. (Physical Education), but she was a science prodigy and was accepted to M.I.T. She knew how to market herself using her substantial accomplishments (inventions, awards, articles, etc…), and M.I.T. saw her as an exceptional candidate even though she didn’t meet the basic requirement every guidance counselor tells you about. She refused to play the grades/SAT/diploma game and decided to make up her own rules.

Fog Creek Software makes millions annually selling bug tracking software. Are they the best bug tracking application available? I don’t really know. But it isn’t about being the best, it’s about marketing. And Joel knows a lot about marketing (he doesn’t admit this, instead saying he stumbled into the popularity of his blog).

These days everyone has a blog to promote their software, but when he started Joel on Software back in March of 2000, Joel was inventing a new form of self-marketing. Intentional or not, writing his own rules has made Fog Creek an incredibly profitable company.

Self-Marketing Rule #3: If you have an exceptional talent, market yourself through exceptional means. Don’t play the game everyone else is playing.

Last time I checked, Fog Creek Software didn’t have a Verisign seal on their website.

Crowdsourcing: A Million Heads is Better than One

2009-08-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

The "wisdom of crowds" is a popular web 2.0 buzzword, popularized by James Surowiecki‚Äôs book of the same name. At its most basic, the term means that two heads are better than one, and that still more heads will yield even better results.
Crowdsourcing can be looked at as an application of the wisdom of crowds concept, in which the knowledge and talents of a group of people is leveraged to create content and solve problems. The official definition from the term‚Äôs originator, Jeff Howe, is "the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call."
Crowdsourcing can be broken down in to three categories:
1. creation (like Wikipedia);
2. prediction (like Yahoo! Buzz); and
3. organization (like Google).

Self-Management

2009-08-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

Management is not just for managers, just as leadership is not just for leaders.
We all manage, and we all lead; these are not actions reserved for only for particular. we can all learn to be more self-governing through the disciplines of great management and great leadership; these are concepts that can give us wonderful tenets to daily live. As there is great quotation about self-management, "Show me a business where everyone lives and works by self-managing, and I’ll bet it’s a business destined for greatness." As three are Twelve Rules for Self-Management:

1. Live by your values, whatever they are. You confuse people when you don’t, because they can’t predict how you’ll behave.

2. Speak up! No one can “hear” what you’re thinking without you be willing to stand up for it. Mind-reading is something most people can’t do.

3. Honor your own good word, and keep the promises you make. If not, people eventually stop believing most of what you say, and your words will no longer work for you.

4. When you ask for more responsibility, expect to be held fully accountable. This is what seizing ownership of something is all about; it’s usually an all or nothing kind of thing, and so you’ve got to treat it that way.

5. Don’t expect people to trust you if you aren’t willing to be trustworthy for them first and foremost. Trust is an outcome of fulfilled expectations.

6. Be more productive by creating good habits and rejecting bad ones. Good habits corral your energies into a momentum-building rhythm for you; bad habits sap your energies and drain you.

7. Have a good work ethic, for it seems to be getting rare today. Curious, for those “old-fashioned” values like dependability, timeliness, professionalism and diligence are prized more than ever before. Be action-oriented. Seek to make things work. Be willing to do what it takes.

8. Be interesting. Read voraciously, and listen to learn, then teach and share everything you know. No one owes you their attention; you have to earn it and keep attracting it.

9. Be nice. Be courteous, polite and respectful. Be considerate. Manners still count for an awful lot in life, and thank goodness they do.

10. Be self-disciplined. That’s what adults are supposed to “grow up” to be.

11. Don’t be a victim or a martyr. You always have a choice, so don’t shy from it: Choose and choose without regret. Look forward and be enthusiastic.

12. Keep healthy and take care of yourself. Exercise your mind, body and spirit so you can be someone people count on, and so you can live expansively and with abundance

BBC Media Player

2007-10-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

BBC Media Player

World News

2007-10-18T00:47:00.000-07:00


	Washington Post		The Wall Street Journal
	New York Times		Financial Times, London
	The Times of India		The Economic Times
	The Hindu, Chennai		Pioneer, Delhi
	Indian Express, Mumbai		Indian Express, Delhi
	Asian Age		The Telegraph, Kolkata
	Dainik Bhaskar		India Today
	Business Today		Business Week
	Outlook		The Economist
	Hindustan Times, Delhi		BBC London

Chak De India: A Lesson to Your Mission (Dream)

2007-08-25T01:14:00.000-07:00

This is not just an entertaining movie but it is a Lesson to your mission in your life, it is a Lesson to your Dream. It is a lesson to your self-belief. It splashes 7 “self” on the mental-screen through out the movie:

1. Self-respect

2. Self-confidence

3. Self-worth

4. Self-acceptance

5. Self-love

6. Self-knowledge

7. Self-discipline

Chak De India is not just the story of a coach's efforts in building a team by overcoming the diverse backgrounds they hail from but it is the desire. It's a story about honesty, sincerity and integrity. It tells that Success is not an accident. It is the result of our attitude and our attitude is a choice. Hence success is a matter of choice and not chance which require 5 D: Direction, Dedication, Determination, Discipline, Deadlines.

It is not just talk about the hard work but also about your mental strength, your willingness, your intension. It tells “PLAY TO WIN”.

Finally, Half-hearted effort does not produce half results; it produces no results.

Change: A function of Time

2007-08-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

Change is a cause or cause is source of change. Do u think this statement is conflicting or reason for each other? Is it a process or accident?

Let me define it:

Change = f (t).

[As I am an engineer so my mind always carried away towards mathematics.]

Above definition tells change in a function of time. As time keeps changing so change will go with it. Now question comes on you. Change will occur; it is sure. But are you changing yourself or time changing you. Are you choosing your future or time will choose for you?

You might have heard about someone or something he/she/it change very fast. What do you think about this statement? Why people say this? Reason could be those who change very fast handle the change for himself but those who change slowly for them changes is handle by external factor (time). So reasons cause the effectiveness of change.

What do you think about this article? Please put your comments

Learn Yourself to Learn Others

2007-07-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Effective Communication Skills

Bibliomania - Free Online Literature and Study Guides

2007-07-25T04:29:00.000-07:00

Bibliomania - Free Online Literature and Study Guides

what is your vision Add ur stuff here

2006-11-24T03:38:00.000-08:00

Plz send to fromsanzay@gmail.com to display ur posting