Skip to main content

Contribupendence Day

I'm a day late here but read more about Contribupendence Day on Jeff Blankenburg's blog. Our community here in central Ohio runs strong and it's 100% attributable to individual contributions. Thank you to all these folks for the contributions they've made in helping others (especially me) achieve their goals. My props:

Josh Holmes - When first reaching out to the community, Josh went out of his way to provide great advice and some seriously cool opportunities for me to get involved. He regularly writes and presents on topics which help community leaders improve themselves. Additionally, he helped organize CodeMash and the Ann Arbor Give Camp--regional events which often exceed the quality of national, professional, thousands-of-dollars events.

Carey Payette - There isn't a Heartland/Ohio event I don't see Carey attend. She took over the reigns for CONDG and is one of the most selfless people I know. How she manages 3 kids of her own, internal company user groups, CONDG and stuff I'm not even aware of, I'll never know.

Jeff Blankenburg - I've been loving on the Developer Evangelist position from Microsoft since its creation. Our last DE made for a tough act to follow. Now I feel sorry for the next guy. Jeff is that good. I think he was custom molded for the position. His outgoing personality, strong technical skills, clear writing/presenting, and his genuine desire to help truly make a difference in the Heartland. I'm glad he's on the case.

Brian Prince - A one-time competitor of sorts, I'm constantly amazed at Brian's almost paternal-like instincts and attitude. Near immediately following the announcement of his role as Architect Evangelist, with a 1000 things to do, he reached out with, "Hey, how can I help you?" Help me?! Wow. Brian's uber-smarts and services experience makes him a tremendous asset for the Heartland. I'm dreading the day he's tapped to head to Redmond. No Drew, you can't have him! ;-) Along with Drew and Dave, CONDG (and several other user groups in central Ohio) are what they are today because of Brian. Finally, Brian does a tremendous job of breeding leaders. Who's running and contributing to the community in central Ohio? Most have a connection to Brian.

Leon Gersing - Leon contributes by challenging the status quo and making us think. He also contributes by doing. Rather than pitching a fit about developer tools within the Sharepoint arena, he went off and developed a unit test harness solution. Bam. His presentation style is that of a calm, peaceful old friend--and the point really gets across. I'm glad he's still here in Ohio...if not working for my firm. ;-(

Jim Holmes - A lot of folks aren't aware of even half what Jim contributes to the community. He's one of the most humble guys I know. Just FYI, CodeMash is Jim's baby. He has lots of help from Brian, Josh, Jason, et. al. but he's the brainchild. And Central Ohio Day of .Net, Dayton .Net User Group, writing books, reviewing books, presenting, etc. A true contributor. Even when he's griping about TFS, he remains a gentleman. Despite working for a competitor, I'd relish working with him on a project--I'd learn a ton.

Mike Wood - Mike rolls just like Jim: completely humble, just wants to help, always contributing. Just an amazing kind of person. Mike runs the Cincy .Net User Group and the Central Ohio Day of .Net...in addition to touring all over presenting on cool stuff like WF. His creativity with delivering more and more value to the community (CINNUG "special events", tie-ins to Day of .Net, Microsoft, etc.) make the Cincy community significantly stronger.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hero Write-up: Now this is Customer Service!

My best friend Scott is president/C-everything of a small northeastern Ohio manufacturing concern, KirkKey Interlock . I hadn't spoken with him for a while and wanted to see how Canton fared with the Blizzard of '08 (that's what they're calling it...not me). I say, "So what's new?" He replies that on Tuesday his primary server (which essentially runs the business) came up with lame with not one, but [a statistically improbable] *two* physical disk failures on a RAID5 hardware array. My friend attempts the fix but gives up pretty quickly after seeing some Linux nasty-grams on the boot screen. His service provider is an old college buddy who lives down in Raleigh, Cerient Technologies led by Jason Tower . Scott couldn't email out because Exchange was on the toasted server. Being creative, Scott started Treo-emailing photos of the screen. Unfortunately, Jason couldn't receive email because a storm had knocked out a lot of local hosting. [Sigh] After...

Certified or Certifiable?

As a senior technology professional, I interview a lot of candidates. I also maintain solid relationships with other folks in the community. Frequently, the topic of certifications arises: A good investment? Valuable? A clear measurement of skill? Consensus appears to draw the line related to one's seniority. If you're (for example) just out of school and looking for an instant creditability boost, by all means pursue a certification. Likely, this credential will assist you in overcoming the "junior" tag and likely land you more interviews and client roles. (Note: I'm going to use the terms senior and junior here...no offense to either. Can't think of a better one word description. I was a junior once too.) In stark contrast, the value of certifications drops off the table around the 2-3 year mark. Some in my circles even perceive certifications as a negative for the senior professional. They think, "If this guy is so solid, why is he wasting valuable...

Lab Management in Visual Studio 2010 Released

In my experience, there's a lot of animosity and poor communication between Development and QA . It's not that they don't appreciate one another so much as they never seem to stay on the same page. QA : "What's the status on defect #4874?" Dev: "Done." QA : "Done?" Dev: "Yeah, I fixed that Tuesday." QA : "Err, ok . Well where is it? I mean where can I verify it?" Dev: "No clue. I committed it Tuesday. It passed unit tests and built successfully." QA : "Alright. I'll track it down." Invariably , QA speaks with the build manager (if there is one) to find the build in which that defect was repaired. After discovering the correct build, now QA needs an environment stood up to house that build. But wait, the UAT environment is currently testing the next release. It can't be disturbed for another week. At this point, the QA person's blood pressure heads for unsafe levels and the Dice.com bro...