I’m sitting with a couple of interesting people. Dave Rosenberg, principle analyst of OSDL (the open source guys, he works with Linus Torvalds) and Rajesh Setty, author of Beyond Code. We’re sitting in the cafeteria inside the borg. Now you understand why I sit in the cafeteria.
He says that his work has hugely helped developers careers. He’s studied a lot of developers and what they do to sink their careers.
“For developers the technical skills are only part of the story,” he says. “They need to build what I call the long term skills.”
Developers need to do things that will set them apart from the crowd, he says. Public speaking for instance. He pointed out how Chandu Thota set himself apart from the rest of his team by building the Feedmap over on the right side of my blog. Quick, can you name anyone else who works with Chandu? Does that turn into rewards, money, opportunities? You bet it does.
He talks about ROII – Return on Investment for Interaction. What we have less and less of is time, he says. People forget that time is the biggest investment that people can make. He looks at blogs as having ROII. But even blogs can set themselves apart from other blogs. How many blogs get return visitors? Why? Because the Return on Investment for Interaction for those readers is too small.
He’s identified nine simple things that developers can do to build their brands and move ahead in their careers.
Does this stuff matter? Yes. Even on a business level. Over and over I hear about business decisions made on relationships. Just this week I learned about a deal worth tens of millions of dollars closed on the strength of relationships.
Scobleizer 
>This week I learned about a deal worth tens
>of millions of dollars closed on the strength
>of relationships.
I think this is the rule, rather than the exception. When thinking about deals worth tens to hundreds of millions, or even billion dollars, it seems as though they must be impersonal and based on cold, hard judgement. But, the reality is, we’re talking about people here. It’s people that do deals with other people; it’s not really companies doing deals with companies. And people – when given a choice – tend to interact with people they know and like/respect.
It’s not too surprising, when you think about it: would you prefer to hand over a hundred million of *your* money to someone you didn’t know at all; or would you prefer to trust it to someone you know?
So, both at the personal career level and the corporate level – it’s all about relationships.
LikeLike
>This week I learned about a deal worth tens
>of millions of dollars closed on the strength
>of relationships.
I think this is the rule, rather than the exception. When thinking about deals worth tens to hundreds of millions, or even billion dollars, it seems as though they must be impersonal and based on cold, hard judgement. But, the reality is, we’re talking about people here. It’s people that do deals with other people; it’s not really companies doing deals with companies. And people – when given a choice – tend to interact with people they know and like/respect.
It’s not too surprising, when you think about it: would you prefer to hand over a hundred million of *your* money to someone you didn’t know at all; or would you prefer to trust it to someone you know?
So, both at the personal career level and the corporate level – it’s all about relationships.
LikeLike
Hi robert – just wanted to let you know ive updated http://www.winnews.com – and added your rss and picture – hope it’s OK
jamie
LikeLike
Hi robert – just wanted to let you know ive updated http://www.winnews.com – and added your rss and picture – hope it’s OK
jamie
LikeLike
woohoo something about linux on this god forsaken blog!!!..well I do run Win Server 2003 but it was free..(MSDN AA)..but I do use MySQL..
ahhhhhhhh goo Scoble!!
LikeLike
woohoo something about linux on this god forsaken blog!!!..well I do run Win Server 2003 but it was free..(MSDN AA)..but I do use MySQL..
ahhhhhhhh goo Scoble!!
LikeLike
Today I found myself reading your blog more then usual.
No GYM makes Scobleizer much better 🙂
LikeLike
Today I found myself reading your blog more then usual.
No GYM makes Scobleizer much better 🙂
LikeLike
yes yes, it is more interesting than reading about Microsoft’s future triumph of Google
LikeLike
yes yes, it is more interesting than reading about Microsoft’s future triumph of Google
LikeLike
Back when I worked at Intel, I did a training for junior-to-mid-level engineers talking about career development and focused on many of hte same things. Some assertions I made:
– Part of the requirements most companies have for “fellow” level positions involves being a ‘recognized expert’ in some area(a). Most engineers focus on the expert part and assume the recognized part will happen. Not true! need to market yourself.
– Speak. A lot. Do not turn down opportunities to do so without really good reason.
– Speak & also network. It used to be that people said “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. It’s more often said as of late that “it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you”
LikeLike
Back when I worked at Intel, I did a training for junior-to-mid-level engineers talking about career development and focused on many of hte same things. Some assertions I made:
– Part of the requirements most companies have for “fellow” level positions involves being a ‘recognized expert’ in some area(a). Most engineers focus on the expert part and assume the recognized part will happen. Not true! need to market yourself.
– Speak. A lot. Do not turn down opportunities to do so without really good reason.
– Speak & also network. It used to be that people said “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. It’s more often said as of late that “it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you”
LikeLike