agent of change

I got into a debate with some friends lately about the work/life balance. This seems to be a perennial topic for me as I get older. There’s something in me that is driven to succeed, to build a life for myself. I’ve seen previews of what it will be like. I know it’s there for the taking. There is also another part of me that knows I need that balance. Like I said to Nick, I burned out a few years ago and reevaluated what I really wanted in life. It came down to family and friends being the most important thing to me. So far for me, I’ve been lucky in that work has supported both of those things as I’ve worked with both family and friends much of my life. ThoughtWorks has just brought more friends like Clint, Eric, and Cliff. I’d do anything for those guys. They are like family to me too, which might be why this line is so blurry for me.

The illustrious Brad Feld came up in our conversation about his work/life balance. I’ve always looked up to smart people like Brad and tried to learn from their mistakes. I learned a long time ago that it is the best to learn this way, but there are unfortunately some things that you need to go through yourself to make the lesson really stick.

I’m trying to strike the right balance in my own life. I’m willing to give up a little personal time to get a strong foothold on a career, but I won’t do it forever. My life outside of work is too important to spend it in an office building all day. I love my work. I especially loved it when I was at NeoTactix. I would get into these very focused times and work more than 80 hours in a week without noticing. Now, I rely on my family and friends to reel me back in when I’ve gone too far. I don’t listen to people who can’t handle the pressure, don’t really care about me. I listen to those most important to me because they sometimes see things that I don’t.

So, I’m still not sure if I work too much. I know that I am enjoying what I do right now and that family and friends still come first. Like Nick said, I’m practicing for something bigger. Hardships? Setbacks? Things I’ve never done before? Bring ‘em on, but somebody remind me about dinner…

I attended the annual Ruby Conference this year in Denver, CO courtesy of ThoughtWorks. Lots of fun was had by all. I met up with a few people from caboose that I hadn’t seen since last year and had some friends like Evan Phoenix do some talks.

The conference was a good chance to meet up with some other ThoughtWorkers and have fun in a city I haven’t been to before.

I also snuck out at night to go to SkyVenture and do a little indoor night-skydiving. That was definitely an experience I’ll have to have again.

Until next year…

In consulting, soft skills go a long way to getting what you want. Negotiating, delegating, supporting; all of these skills come in handy the more you have to interact with other people. That’s why I like law 24. More after the jump.

Many things in this life are counter-intuitive on the surface. You do one thing and you get the opposite of what you want. Sometimes to get what you want, you have to do the thing you least want to do. Of course, this tactic can backfire, but it’s another tool to use through life that many people could use, but don’t.

I am currently working on a large project with around 30 fellow ThoughtWorkers and another 30 consultants comprised of about 6 different consulting firms. There have been some questions rolling around in my mind regarding how agile methods are working on a project where not everyone is used to those techniques and some actually seem to reject the ideals and use their own methods. More after the jump.

After having problems with an owner of a business, this week’s law of power came in handy by allowing us to get out of his way and do the right thing. More after the jump.

This week’s law of power talks about a need to keep your ear to the ground and not defend yourself in a fortress. More after the jump.

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for me at my new job. I’ve met so many new people and have gotten involved in many different parts of the business. Orientation went by in a blur in the “bored” room. I got to hang out with 3 great people who were going through orientation too and run around Chicago during the immigration rally and get Giordano’s pizza.

I’m currently working in Madison, Wisconsin on a project doing Enterprise Testing which is much more fun than it sounds. Today, for instance, I was working on some ruby code (yay!) to automate a huge number of tests. I work with lots of great people and get to see how a truly large project gets done. It’s an amazing thing what the agile process does for development.

I’m getting used to the travel and all of the “joys” that go with it. Life as a consultant is good right now and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I hope to update more now that I have my poor PowerBook back from the grave.

This week’s law of power is a great one about scarcity. Most people know about supply and demand and can understand that things become more valuable when they are rare. Some however, don’t realize it takes rarity along with demand to make something (or someone) valuable. It is this subtlety that escapes some and is at the heart of this week’s law. More after the jump.

I decided I needed a new front page to this place, so I went to work on something new. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted until I started putting something down on paper and forming some ideas. I finally came up with the design you see “here”:http://www.bitshaker.com and I am pretty happy with it. Read on after the jump on how I did it.