develpreneur podcast
Posted on Grow From Failures

Key Performance Indicators – Measure Your Spending

This episode looks at a marketing campaign and my lack of paying based on key performance indicators or KPIs.  This was a slightly costly mistake and, thus, one that sticks in my memory.  The mistakes that cause us some level of pain are also the easiest to remember. However, that is not the only lesson to learn from this past mistake. KPI – Key Performance Indicators Any form of sales or marketing campaign can be a black box when we do not set KPI values.  There must be a way to measure success (or failure), and our metrics are the key performance indicators.  For example, most advertising campaigns focus on clicks or leads for a measure of potential additional sales. ... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on Grow From Failures

Ask Questions To Show Knowledge – A Bad Interview

In this episode, our trip down memory lane stops at my first professional interview and when I learned to ask questions.  It is thought by many that those that know never ask.  However, that is far from the truth.  There are always details to be learned.  Likewise, good questions can impress others in an interview or other assessment situation.  Smart people still ask questions; they ask insightful ones. You Provide Insight When You Ask Questions This story is about an interview, and that is the number one situation in our lives where we want to provide a lot of information in a short period.  A good interview goes deep quickly and gives the audience a chance to understand us to... Read more

creating content channels
Posted on Become a Better Developer

Creating Content Channels – Podcast, Blog, Book, Youtube, etc.

The past few years have included us creating content channels across a number of outlets.  That has led to a request to provide a presentation on how to go about such tasks.  The goal is to focus on the content portion more than just list technical tools and platforms.  We talk about approaches to producing content and considerations if you want to start down any of these paths. Creating Content Channels – Many Options, Similar Approach One thing that was apparent in creating this presentation was how similar many of the channels are.  That gives us some overarching steps to take and then refinements based on your channel.  All of this combines to give you a thoughtful approach to creating... Read more

Technical Support - Fire Fighting Issues
Posted on Support

Technical Support – Fire Fighting Issues

Welcome, today we are going to be talking about one of the most talked-about, but overlooked discussions about software and that is technical support. What do we do when software has a problem? In today’s discussion, we’re going to look at different things like production support. What does it mean to actually support our product? In past discussions, we’ve talked about software development life cycle, software test life cycle, differences in how to write code, how to debug our code and how to test it. However, we really haven’t talked too much about deployment and production support. This is where we’re going to focus our discussion today. How do we support our product and our customers? We’re going to look... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on Grow From Failures

Acceptable Risk – A Bike Trick Gone Bad

We look at another childhood error and its somewhat humorous result as an example of how to plan for acceptable risk.  We often think of that as something where you are willing to pay the price.  However, we also need to examine mitigating the consequences to where they are acceptable.  It is sort of like placing a monetary bet.  There is a limit we can lose, but maybe a side bet will help reduce the overall loss.  Precautions And Acceptable Risk Preventive action is an excellent way to adjust acceptable risk.  We see examples of this in beta testing and limited releases in the business world.  Yes, the product may fail. But, on the other hand, we have less invested... Read more

develpreneur podcast
Posted on Grow From Failures

A Painful Step – Situational Awareness

A lack of situational awareness is just one of many youthful mistakes we make.  Yet, it is the root of tons of lessons.  We see it as children shining they are immortal in some way.  However, sometimes there is just a misunderstanding of risks involved in actions or environments.  Some of these same mistakes can hit us much later in life and come from incorrect assumptions. Situational Awareness Cures Many Ills Sun Tzu points out in “The Art of War” that the best way to win a battle is to avoid it.  Life is full of similar situations.  We are often faced with a challenge that is best avoided.  That is why we spend so much time and money on... Read more