This will be a very short post (read below for explanation) with a few upcoming big events that are happening.

SPTechCon

    This coming Wednesday through Friday I will be attending SPTechCon.  SPTechCon is a SharePoint conference put on by BZ Media being held in San Francisco.  This is the second year for the conference, my first for attending.  I was lucky enough to win a free ticket through some connections at COSPUG and able to convince my company to pick up most of the expenses for the trip.  The reason for this being a short post is that it’s currently 10pm tonight, my flight got changed from 2pm tomorrow to 6:30am (to avoid bad weather coming this way), and I still have to pack my bags among other loose ends.  I do look forward to meeting a number of people in person that I’ve gotten to hear about through Twitter or their blogs.  Pictures and updates will be in a follow up post.

    On a related note, I have signed up through EndUserSharePoint to be a live blogger and Twitterbug during SPTechCon.  I wish I had more details to share, but go to their site and I’m sure there will be some way of finding myself and the others contributing during the conference.  Although there have been many occasions I’ve unofficially blogged and twittered during conferences, this will be the first officially commissioned (or whatever you wish to call it) time I’m doing so.  Hope it goes well.

SharePoint Saturday Michigan

    SharePoint Saturday Michigan (SPSMichigan) is coming up on March 13th, in Ann Arbor Michigan.  This will be my 3rd SharePoint Saturday so far (recap SPSIndy and SPSCleveland)  and it’s in my home state so I’m even more excited for it.  One my fellow Sogeti co-workers Jesse Murray is one of the organizers and I hear things are coming together.  I will be submitting a talk or two for presenting during the conference, we’ll see if I make it in.  If you are in the area that Saturday and wish to get some free info and great networking with the SharePoint community, please register and I look forward to seeing you there.

Stir Trek

    Unfortunately I can’t talk too much about this event yet.  The reason being that I’m on the board of volunteers for this conference and we’re waiting to make the really big publicity push until a later date.  What I can say is that Stir Trek started last year here in Columbus, OH as a web development focused conference (based on the MIX conference, MIX => Stir… get it) which was then followed by a screening of the movie Star Trek.  I attended last year and enjoyed it so much I decided to help out with the planning of it for this year.  This year the event will be taking place on May 7th, 2010 (as alluded to in the teaser link above) and you’ll notice the phrase “Iron Man Edition” as well.  Not too hard to guess what we mean by that, but look for more details about this event coming soon.

Conclusion

    Well, this might honestly be the first blog post in awhile that I’ve pumped out in under 30 minutes.  I guess the time crunch I’m in also necessitated that as well though.  These are just a few of the bigger events I’ll be attending or helping out with in the coming months (not to mention all the user group meetings, etc.)  Take the time to check them out and hopefully I’ll see a few of you readers out at these events.  Until then.

      -Frog Out

Aside from the facts that I’m blatantly ripping off borrowing from the movie Forrest Gump and also straying away from my usual technical content, I had a notion this morning that I felt like I needed to explain.  In case you missed a tweet of mine from earlier today, here it was.

http://twitter.com/BrianTJackett/status/7989659514

Now you might be saying to yourself “I know exactly what he means” or “I don’t know what the heck he means”.  Never fear, that’s why I’m here to explain.  First things first, I recently went through a break up with a girl that was a bit different than past break ups.  You see, this girl decided to give me constructive criticism about our relationship.  So naturally I’ve been thinking over what she had to say and I started to see parallels between how I approach relationships and how I approach work.  Here are a few of the big things that stood out for me (and perhaps will be relatable for you.)

Communication is a must

Open communication is necessary for any healthy relationship (work or social.)  You may have heard a phrase like “you need to tell me what’s going on, I’m not a mind reader” at some point in your life.  Being able to put thoughts, ideas, and feelings into words is how we as humans relate to others.  The same is needed with your employer.  I’m sure many of you have regular reviews with your manager or superiors, but those meetings once, twice, or however many times a year should only be affirming the communication that is continually going on between you and your employer.  Keep the lines of communication frequent and flowing.

Honesty is a must

Without honesty, all that open communication you’ve been working on can pretty much be thrown into the trash.  Honesty has major implication for relationships of all types, and it takes more forms than just telling the truth or being ethical.  In addition, sometimes dishonesty will manifest through deliberate omissions (I didn’t find any bugs in my code), to white lies (I found one minor bug that isn’t a big deal), all the way to blatant lies (there’s no way this one bug will crash the entire application, oops.)  Honesty is important for both sides of a relationship so that each side is accepting who the other person truly is.

Don’t be afraid to fluff your feathers

I’m not a zoologist by any means, but I hear that when some birds are looking for a potential mate they fluff out their feathers to make themselves appear larger and thus propagate Darwin’s theory of natural selection.  Just as we humans like to show off our positive qualities to potential significant others, so too should you show off your positive work to your employer.  I’m a consultant, so whenever I receive a praising email from a client or have a notable success I like to pass that along to my superiors.  Not only does this help my case for getting a raise or promotion at review time, it also reaffirms my employer that they made the right choice hiring me and I’m bringing positive value to the company.  As a side bonus, it also means I want them to share in my joy/celebration over a job well done.

Conclusion

This has been just a brief glimpse into what I think it means to view your employer-employee relationships like your relationships with a significant other.  Glad to see my psychology minor getting put to a little bit of use.  If any of you are interested in singularity type ideas (seeing the relatedness of everything) then I highly recommend you read The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse.  It is one of my favorite books of all time and really digs into that “everything is connected” notion in a science fiction / mathematics type of ways.  So enjoy this short break from my technical posts and expect me to return to my usual types of posts next time.

-Frog Out

Updated 2010/1/6 – added Android Development

    In the past few days I’ve been catching up on various blogs and ran across a few listing goals for 2010 (notably Matt Nowack and Jeremiah Peschka.)  As in years past I’ve made goals for myself, but this year I’d like to formalize them and revisit this at the conclusion of this year to see how well my grit and determination stood up.  Similar to Jeremiah I have a PDP (personal development plan) that contains work related goals I work towards and update throughout the year.  Here’s an expansion of my current list of goals broken up by relevant areas.

Professional

• Blog – I can’t believe it’s been just over 6 months since I started blogging.  When I started I tried to set a few ground rules for myself.  I wanted to keep my posts mostly tech-related focusing on “how-to” or “here’s where I messed up and you can learn from my mistakes” types of articles.  I also wanted to write at least 2 posts a month, closer to 4 or more if my schedule allowed.  All of these goals I still want to keep, perhaps expanding article topics to also include “hey check out this cool new feature I’m researching at the moment.”
• Speaking – Last year I was graced with the opportunity to speak at a number of events both at my company and in the community (notably COSPUG and SharePoint Saturday Cleveland.)  I hope to have the opportunity to speak at more events this year, but that won’t be a huge focus for me.  I feel like my efforts can be better utilized with the next item and spending more time on research and learning new technologies.
• Volunteering – Ever since a very young age I have always been a big proponent of volunteering time to the community at large.  In the past few months I volunteered to help out with the COSPUG steering committee and the Stir Trek Conference volunteer board for 2010 (and beyond if possible.)  I greatly look forward to helping out with these in an official role as well as other events such as Columbus Give Camp, all of which have been very worthwhile endeavors in my experience.
• Android Development – About 2 months ago I made the leap from my old served-my-limited-needs phone to the new hotness Droid.  (You can tell my old phone is old because it’s on the “discontinued” page from LG 🙂 )  In addition to getting all the nice features of GPS, web access, and Google Marketplace apps, the Droid also runs Android 2.0 which offers open development.  I’d like to test the water of mobile development by creating a very simple app or two, perhaps something related to some of the groups I’m working with (thinking Stir Trek schedule app at the moment.)  This would also give me a chance to brush up on my Java as I spent half of my college classes in it, got my current job at Sogeti in large part due to my Java knowledge, and later got certified in Java development.

Personal

• Getting in Shape – In general I’d say I’m a fairly healthy guy, but when I recently started playing indoor soccer with some coworkers in a league I noticed how badly I got out of breath after just a few minutes of running on the field.  I’m going to continue playing on multiple softball and volleyball leagues throughout the year, but also work in some cardio and light running to get my wind back.
• Volunteering – Yes, I can hear you through your monitor saying “Brian you already listed this one.”  This is a different form of volunteering.  For the past 2 years I’ve been helping out at my local parish’s high school youth group with weekly meetings and chaperoning special events.  In addition to continuing that I would like to get back to working with Habitat for Humanity.  Throughout my 5 years in college (I had a co-op, wasn’t because I was slow or anything) I worked with our college chapter of Habitat building houses and leading the group in some fashion.  I’d like to help with house builds or events at least every other month this year.
• House/Condo – I’ve been living in an apartment close to 2 years now.  I really love my place and all the benefits it offers (free hot chocolate/coffee machine, pool, rentable movie theater, and others) but I’d also like a little more space and an area where I can have a work bench.  Back to the Habitat mention above, I love working with my hands on carpentry projects and the like, but haven’t really been able to since moving into my apartment due to the space limitations.  I’ll be looking around in the summer when my lease comes up.  If you know any great places in the northern Columbus area let me know.

    So that wraps up my current goals.  I’ll be checking back in with these periodically throughout the year to measure how I’m stacking up.  If any of the following people are reading this, consider yourselves tagged because I’d love to see you post your goals for 2010: Kelly Jones, Dan Luciano, Don Zielke, Jennifer Mason, and Sean McDonough.  Here’s to the start of a great 2010 🙂

     -Frog Out

Before reading this post, I highly recommend reading Top 5 reasons why “The Customer Is Always Right” is wrong.  That article gives great insight into the thoughts to follow.

In the US we have an old saying that says “the customer is always right.”  As time goes by there are various people (like the Southwest CEO in the article above) who don’t believe that phrase to be quite true.  While I may agree that it is not always a true statement, I feel there are some valuable lessons on both sides of this topic to be learned.  So far with my blog I have tried to stick to writing how-to or technical related articles, but recently this phrase has come up a few times so I’m dipping into “op-ed” territory for this post.  I’ll illustrate two such instances that spurred me on this topic.

The first instance I witnessed from the angle of the company.  Last week while I was waiting in line at a local video game retailer.  Ahead of me was a man (let’s call him Bob) in his late 20’s to early 30’s purchasing a new video game.  Bob asked to also get a copy of the strategy guide for the same game.  The clerk replied that the strategy guide had not been released yet so their store had no copies.  Bob insisted that the clerk had the product.  After 10 minutes of numerous phone calls, checks into the database, and searching through the store the clerk told Bob that he was unable to locate it.  Finally fed up Bob paid for his game and left the store cursing the clerk loud enough for other customers to hear.

After Bob had left, the clerk apologized for my wait (well over 10 minutes by this point) and having to witness that exchange.   He told me that Bob was a regular so all managers and associates knew him by face.  Every time Bob came in he complained about something.  Each time the employees tried to work with him and be as polite as possible.  During my encounter Bob had negatively affected a number of people in the store.  The clerk was subjected to verbal abuse, I was kept waiting, and a number of other younger customers overheard Bob swearing and half-yelling at the clerk.  Perhaps management (like the Southwest CEO) should tell Bob that there are plenty of other retailers Bob could use instead of theirs.

The second instance is more a series of events I’ve witnessed trending on various forms of media (blogs, twitter, forums, etc) coming from the angle of the dissatisfied customer.  One such event occurred a few weeks ago while listening to a fellow Twitterer (let’s call him Sam) rant about the horrible sales service he received from a local cable provider.  At the end of this series of tweets Sam finished with “<cable company name> FAIL.”

For those of us in the know, it’s not uncommon to see blog posts, tweets, or forum comments with FTW (for the win), FTL (for the lose), or epic fail announcements.  I typically don’t think much of these announcements, but Sam’s comment stuck out more than usual for me.  I think it struck a chord with me because it reminded me of a funny/insightful article I read about “if clients treated architects like software developers”.  It’s (near) impossible to please every person every single time for a given situation.  What can be helpful though is for all sides to take a minute and look at the situation from the perspective of the other person.  It’s also important to set expectations early on so that both sides know what they are getting into.  Too often we are more focused on getting MY problem resolved rather than working towards a solution that is positive for everyone.

I don’t claim to have the perfect answer for the issues that result from customer/seller relationship, but I do encourage you to take a few minutes to think about the situation from all angles the next time you feel the need to yell at a company or complain about bad service.  Sometimes the custom is NOT always right.

If any of my 7 readers out there enjoyed this switch up to a more “op-ed” style post (or if you down right didn’t like it and wish I never went down this route again) let me know in the comments.  I’ll always be working on technical posts, but if people enjoy a little variety I’m happy to give it a shot.  Thanks for reading.

-Frog Out

Extra Links

Funny “customer isn’t right” conversations

http://notalwaysright.com/

Homer Simpson Epic Fail

Vender Client relationship – in real world situations (funny video)

Hello blog readers.  This is my first official blog so let me introduce myself and let you know what types of things to expect from this blog.

My name is Brian Jackett and I’m a Senior IT Consultant for Sogeti USA in the Columbus, OH area.  My primary focus is on the Microsoft stack, but I started out in the Java realm when I first became a consultant.  Throughout life I’ve been called a “utility player”, “jack of all trades”, and general dabbler in many different areas.  Much of that led to why I enjoy consulting work so much as it allows me to see and work with numerous different technologies and always keeps me on my toes.  Generally I gravitate towards web development (ASP.Net, SharePoint), automation (Power Shell, shell scripting) and database development (SQL Server, Reporting Services) with my work engagements.  In my spare time I also do enjoy computer animation, attending local user groups (COSPUG), playing video games, tinkering with new technologies, karaoke, and playing sports.

So that’s me.  Onto why I’m starting this blog.  Over the years I’ve gained a lot of knowledge from various blogs, forums, and helpful hints from other people in the IT industry.  As my way of giving back I’ll be posting various solutions that I’ve designed, troubleshooting tips I’ve discovered, and passing along other information that others might find useful.  The name of my blog is meant to reflect that passing along of information.  A simple drop of knowledge into the pond of the interwebs can create a ripple in all directions that I hope helps someone somewhere to do their job better or improve a side project.  So with that I thank you for stopping by and I hope to keep this updated as frequently as I can.  Please feel free to leave feedback and I’ll respond as much as possible.

Frog out