Category: Thoughts and Bits

  • Academic Writing in the Workplace

    Unless you are part of a lab or some other high science workplace where white papers are required, don’t do this. No one will read your finely crafted essay, policy, or dissertation on the vagaries of some project artifact. My experience has shown me this much, the only time this is done is when: you

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  • Digital Services – A general breakdown

    Every once or in a while we all hear during a standup, all hands, or mission guidelines we come across the term “digital services”. Digital services are used in often ethereal and ambiguous contexts within an organization. So let’s break down and gather a definition. I generated this definition by looking at the legal definition

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  • Data for the People – Intro/Chapter 1

    Introduction/Chapter 1 Data for the People by Andreas Weigend begins with a personal story of the Stasi, political prisoners, and the lengths to which governments had to pursue to gather data on a single person. Weigend presents this backdrop to provide us a clear counterbalance to today’s world, where passive surveillance and data collection is

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  • Break Fixes

    Things go wrong it is a normal occurrence. Slinging a hot fix into a system sometimes just must happen. Here are a few things I remember when this happens.

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  • Certifications

    Certifications. I am of two minds around certifications. First, certifications are great to meet compliance obligations and act as signifiers of basic knowledge. Second, certifications do not denote in depth understanding. I have interviewed and been interviewed many a time and certifications rarely cover the necessary knowledge for a topic or domain area. Yet, there

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  • Speciality Areas

    Either like most or unlike most, I generally have no idea, I have a speciality. That speciality is ServiceNow, the software as a service product. For those who don’t know ServiceNow is basically a process automation tool. The vendor – ServiceNow – uses a web-based platform to package and re-sell standardized business and operation practices

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  • Version Control

    Version control is a myth in my realm of consultancy, at least in my realm. I have attempted gathering adoption for Semantic Versioning, to no avail. My advice here is to just do the best you can.

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  • Academia to Practice

    I am by nature and academic. I much prefer academia in lieu of the professional. Often I am asked: “How do the two correlate and interact?”. Generally, they don’t. Academic rigor is rarely moved into the professional realm, at least in my line of work. Often times the introduction of applied theory is also met

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  • Gold Plating

    Every project team has had to deal with gold plating. It’s a natural occurrence in the industry. A client tests something, minds change, and new opportunities are explored leading to new requirements. The target is always moving. What are good ways to deal with this? The first way is a good internal negotiation. Developers and

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  • Technical Interviews

    The technical interview. An opportunity to glean the level of skill a candidate has. I must admit I am not the most technical. Drift into garbage collection and algorithmic analysis and I’m trash. This means my bar is generally low. All I come to ask is know the tool I’m hiring for, admit skill gaps,

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