Kevin Swiber

One big take away I got from the Kalamazoo X Conference was to "seek a mentor."

Merriam-Webster defines mentor as: a trusted counselor or guide, tutor, coach

This idea really got me thinking.  At the most rewarding times of my career, I've been in the very fortunate position to be a mentor.  I excel at playing the role of a tutor or coach when the topic is something I'm very passionate about, such as software development.

Here's the reality check: You are not the best at everything you do.  You have strengths and weaknesses, but don't fear.  You are capable of filling in the gaps.  Find a mentor!  Most of that, I've always known.  It's that last part that seems to have escaped me for so many years.  Just as I'm willing to help others, others may be willing to help me.  Wow, what a thought!

So now... I challenge myself to be more open to the idea of becoming the apprentice, the protégé.

// TODO:

1. List subjects in which I can improve.  Be honest.
2. Seek the advice of Subject Matter Experts.  Even if they just recommend a book, a blog, or another individual's assistance, it's worth it.  Be brave.
3. Follow through!  The best plan is a waste of time unless it has a spectacular execution.  Be committed.

Action Item 1 is easy.  Item 2 requires courage, like asking your best female (PC edit: or male) friend to the prom.  Item 3 is really where the rubber meets the road.  Let's hope I can stay focused and avoid the rumble strips.  I'm excited!

Weeks ago, Michael Eaton blogged about the Kalamazoo X Conference.

The Kalamazoo X Conference is a one-day software development conference hosted in beautiful Southwest Michigan. While there are many great technical conferences in the region, their focus tends toward new technologies and programming languages.  The Kalamazoo X Conference intends to uniquely complement those conferences by enabling attendees to boost their process, design, and communication skills...

Pretty cool, right?  So.. I made the trip to Kalamazoo!  This was an easy sell.  $20.  Accomplished speakers.  Great topics.

This conference was incredible!  It was worth the 2-hour drive.  The last major conference I attended before Kalamazoo X was the MSDN DevCon in Detroit.  DevCon was pretty cool, but the content of Kalamazoo X spoke to areas in which I have room to improve: developing a personal brand, self-promotion, building a solid social network, and more.  As a software developer, I'm very strong, technically.  Developing my "soft skills" will help me get to that next level in my career and has recently become a major focus in my effort to practice Continuous Self-Improvement.

Michael Eaton has a good summary of most of the sessions.  If you're in the Michigan area, I highly recommend getting involved in the very rich developer community this region has to offer: user groups, Days of .NET, Microsoft events, etc.

A big thanks to all who helped put the X Conference together!  I will return next year.

Dear kevinswiber.com,

I'm sorry for neglecting you for so long.  It's been a very long time since I posted to my blog.  I was having some problems getting Graffiti started on my Web host, so I gave up... for almost a year.  I recently renewed my interest in blogging, so now I'm back!  I hope you can forgive me for this atrocious behavior.  I promise I won't neglect you again.

xoxo,

Kevin

So I spoke to Patrick Steele over the weekend at Give Camp and got the rundown on what the Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group is all about.  My biggest concern was that some schmuck would be trying to pitch Company Z's Latest Brand New Product and my entire Wednesday night would be flushed into a stream of repetitive response--not interested.

I was wrong.

Bill Wagner presented on Extension Methods in C# 3.0, giving a little intro to LINQ and deferred execution.  Being someone who's only read brief overviews of what that actually means, I found myself stunned.  Bill would let loose a little more info about What This Can Do, and with each sentence, my mind started racing.  Immediately, I started realizing the impact and fell in love.

So Thursday morning, I went into the office and sent an e-mail to my boss.  I'm going to dive deep into C# 3.0 and the .NET Framework 3.5 and present these technologies to our entire development team when I'm comfortable enough in my level of understanding.  He said, "Let's do it!" 

Selfish motive: After everyone is trained, I get to use this stuff on a daily basis!  Yay!

I'm pumped.

This past weekend, July 11th through the 13th, I participated in the first Ann Arbor Give Camp.  The goal is "Geeks Giving Back."  Between 80 and 100 developers showed up to help 15 non-profit organizations acquire a computer-based solution.  Most of the charities wanted a new or updated Web site, for which Sitefinity and DotNetNuke were used.

I worked on a team for Caring Alternatives, Inc.  They came to us and said, "We have all these volunteers, donors, and clients that we're tracking through paper files and spreadsheets.  How can we better manage this information?"

One TLA: CRM (Customer Relationship Management)!

I started gathering requirements while the rest of the team began researching open source CRM solutions.  We ended up going with SugarCRM, which turned out to be a pretty good framework for a CRM solution using PHP, MySQL, and Apache.

The team was comprised of the following cool cats (shout outs):

Mike Schroeder

Contributed some PHP coding and built the deployment package.

Dave Wollerman

Set up a ton of fields within SugarCRM.

Will Brown

Customized modules within SugarCRM to fit the organization's needs.

Val Cesario

Provided lots of quality assurance testing.

Phil Huhn

Completed the user documentation and worked on testing.

In the end, all these folks did way more than what's listed.  We put in long hours, but it all paid off Sunday evening.

At the closing ceremony on Sunday, I presented our solution to the Give Campers.  Even though I complained nearly all weekend that I didn't get to write a single line of code, it was rewarding to realize during the presentation that we provided a skill that created a solution this organization would not otherwise have.  We're keeping in touch to make sure the deployment is successful.

I will be doing this again, for sure.

I have nothing but praise for the following individuals who contributed to making this event happen: Jennifer Marsman, John Hopkins, Todd Bohlen, Greg Campeau,  Patrick Steele, Josh Holmes, Michael Eaton... and more.

If you're interested in joining the planning committee for next year, contact one of the individuals listed above.  Next year, I'm sure they'd like the opportunity to get on the ground floor and do some coding!  (The truth is hardly any coding went on that weekend.  How do you provide the best solution possible in a single weekend?  Build on an existing framework!  Translation: Little to no coding.  Ah, well... I still had an awesome time.)

So here it is...  I'm now one of those people with a myname dot com.  My mom's gonna think I've finally made it!

A little info:

This site is using Graffiti CMS and is hosted by Verio.  Big "props" to Matt Lagrotte from Verio for all his help and generosity.

I have a bunch of stuff to blog about... Maybe I'll do that now.

Stick around for glimpses into the life of a die-hard programmer!  More to come...