The meme has been going around with the “This is what X person or group thinks I do” and then “This is what I really do…” It got me thinking, so what do I really do and what do people think I do?
At that thought I stumbled. What do I do? I’m kind of rogue, a little bit of a wild card. Always have been, always will be, but in a good way. At least I’d like to think. Beware now, if you’re not into understanding the “feeling” side of things, you may not want to read this. With that warning, here I go…
There are a few things that I’m good at and these things traverse a wide spectrum of technical, writing, and art. I speak and think in abstractions, grasping the psychological need and business focus of companies and people, then implement in the technical realm. I have been told, that I do that pretty well. I try, amid frustrations that I’m sure most developers face, to strive toward making things better, faster, cooler, and up the bad ass on whatever I work on.
Lately though, I’ve stepped upped my game to push toward and focus on cloud technologies. I’ve been studying, implementing, and generally working in that realm of the technology industry for about 2 years now, but it has all been just a personal focus. Kind of a “for fun” type of drive. Now I’m working in the cloud realm 100% of the time. In addition I’m working with people who think, breath, and eat technology and apps and how it all can fit together to make life better.
Beyond that technical realm I’ve been doing something else that I have an aptitude for. Socializing and networking. I’ve taken it upon myself, since I like working with, meeting, and coordinating between people. I work to find the connections that should be made, to bridge gaps in technologies with partnerships, and to push forward key pieces of technology that I personally find interesting. All that, I’ve decided to do myself and have struck out to continue doing that. Things like Node PDX, my blog entries over on New Relic, the AWS User Group (in Seattle), Hadoop & Big Data w/ (@lusciouspear, Devops, PDX ALT.NET, PADNUG, and many other groups I’m working to connect, extend, and help spread the knowledge in these groups and bring and inclusiveness to these events for people in less “tech enabled” parts of the world. I have some pretty big goals in the next few months. But my aim is good so far and things are looking good.
So where does that put me? An implementing, artistic, weird-o, nerd, metal head, musician, who networks, partners, and codes? I suppose all of those things tend to work. Maybe my explanation made things clearer or maybe things are just as cloudy as before (pun? oh dear). Either way, I’ll be in touch with many of you out there hacking on the code, creating the next disruptive technology, and rocking the world while kicking ass!
Eventually, I’m hoping to kick that little dent in the world. 😉
