Author: Joey deVilla

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Ignite Your Career #4: “How to Become a Great Leader”

This is a post that would normally go into just Global Nerdy, but I thought it would also be of interest to non-techies, which is why I’m posting it here. Enjoy!

Inspirational poster: "Captain James T. Kirk: I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."

This Week’s Webcast

How to Become a Great Leader is the topic of this week’s Ignite Your Career, Microsoft Canada’s and CIPS’ webcast series aimed at helping you further develop your career with opinions and advice from experts in Canada’s tech industry. Here’s the abstract for the webcast:

Being a great manager does not by default also mean you are a great leader. For some people, being a leader comes intuitively, for others it is something that requires both self awareness and leading by example. This session will focus on what a panel of Managers/Leaders has done in order to further their development of leader qualities. Topics in this area are wide ranging and based on webcast participation will include such as goal setting, importance of goal alignment, motivation techniques, nurturing trust, developing listening skills and coaching team members. Be sure to listen in and join the conversation with this panel of experts for what should be a very interesting wrap up to the Manager series.

The panelists for this webcast are:

stuart_crawford Stuart Crawford shares his experiences and serves the Calgary Small Business community in his role as the Vice President of Business Development for Bulletproof InfoTech, a leading Microsoft Small Business Partner with offices in Red Deer and Calgary.

barry_gervin Barry Gervin is a founding Partner of ObjectSharp. As a Principal Consultant, Barry provides technical leadership to his valued clients, staff, and the development community. Barry currently serves as a Microsoft Regional Director in Southern Ontario and has received the Microsoft MVP Award for Solutions Architecture for the past 3 years.

dana_epp Dana Epp researches software security and focuses on strong authentication and identity assurance solutions at Scorpion Software Corp. As a computer security software architect, Dana has spent the last 15 years focusing on software development with a particular emphasis on security engineering.

greg_lane Greg Lane is the current Chair of the Canadian Council of Information Technology Professionals (CCITP) of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS). Greg is currently employed with Avanade as the Director Business Development Public Service for Canada.

The webcast will take place this Tuesday, March 24th, from 12:00 noon (Eastern) to 1:00 p.m.. Ignite Your Career webcasts are free of charge – all you have to do is register to listen using your Windows Live ID (which is also free).

Ignite Your Career isn’t about any specific technology or vendor; it’s about maximizing your potential at work and helping you come up with a career plan. No matter what platform or tools you work with, we’re sure that you’ll find this webcast series informative and helpful.

Previous Webcasts

All Ignite Your Career webcasts are recorded and archived so you can listen to them on demand. As with the live webcasts, there’s no charge to listen to them; you just have to register with a Windows Live ID.

The webcasts we’ve had so far in this series are:

  • Industry Insights and Trends
    The nature of technology is one of continual change; a fact of life for professionals in the ICT industry. As a result, you need to be on top of what is happening in the industry in order to position yourself and your organization to benefit from these trends. This panel discussion will arm you with the information you need from experts in the ICT industry in order to stay on top of your game.
    Speakers: Joel Semeniuk, Jeff Kempiners, Jay Payette and Paul Swinwood.
  • Discovering Your Trusted Resources
    Building a set of information sources and connecting with the community at-large are critical to your success in the ICT industry. This session brings successful community, technology, and information leaders together to share their experiences in discovering these resources. Our experts will help you learn how to identify credible sources and find the right tools, links and techniques to keep you up to date in a world of constant change.
    Speakers: Michael J. Sikorsky, Richard Campbell, and John Bristowe.
  • How to Establish and Maintain a Healthy Work/Life Balance
    With mobile technologies and our always-on culture, it’s imperative to establish and maintain a balance between work and life. If your only time to manage change in your environment is after hours, how can you maintain a healthy balance without burning out? How do you manage change so that you can develop your career and spend time with loved ones? This panel discussion will connect you to individuals who strive to establish and maintain this balance.
    Speakers: Mack Male, Cameron McKay, Paul Gossen, Mark Blevis
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Checkin’ Out the Scene While the Accordion Player Does His Thing

This photo was taken at the Accordion City club This is London at the Startup Empire conference back in November, but I didn’t know about it until just now. It’s either an album cover or a scene from a David Lynch movie waiting to happen:

Joey deVilla plays accordion in the foreground as two guys in the background look onPhoto courtesy of Lee Dale.

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Probably Not an Official McDonald’s Franchise

mcfake Photo courtesy of TheDuty.

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The Current Situation

Greg Gutfeld’s Mind-Blowingly Ignorant Remarks About Canada and its Military on FOX News

Once you’ve read this piece and seen the video, see the follow-up story, Greg Gutfeld’s Gutless Apology.

This is even beyond Greg Gutfeld’s run-of-the-mill ignorant, this is the man – and I use the term very loosely – taking it to all-new lows in a piece on the Canadian military and its Afghanistan mission:

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The Current Situation

“The Big Takeover”

Pig in suit and top hat devouring Uncle Sam whole as he tries to devour its leg

The Big Takeover (here’s the regular version, and here’s the single-page “printer-friendly” version) is a Rolling Stone article that suggests that the global economic crisis isn’t about money, but power, and that Wall Street insiders are using the bailout as fuel for an all-out move to take over. Here’s an excerpt from the end of the article:

As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren’t hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged, they talk about how hard they work, the 90-hour weeks, the stress, the failed marriages, the hemorrhoids and gallstones they all get before they hit 40.

"But wait a minute," you say to them. "No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what’s left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?"

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See a Steinway Craftsman in Action

Sante Auriti working on a Steinway piano

I need an excuse to go to Manhattan next week so I can spend a day just watching Steinway craftsman Sante Auriti working his magic, building a Steinway grand piano.

From Monday, March 16th until Friday, March 27th, Auriti won’t be working in his usual workshop. Instead, he’ll be working in plain view in the window of Steinway Hall’s main rotunda, fitting the braces, fitting and gluing the case moldings, rough carving the bottom edge of the rim and fitting the legs of a new Steinway “Louis XV” grand piano.

Putting together a Steinway piano is a long process. They’re still made by hand, one at a time, and it takes a year to make each one. The outer shell – called the case – is built only by senior craftsmen with decades of experience. It’s slow, deliberate work that requires a lot of patience, and I think it would be pretty interesting to watch it in action.

A Flickr user going by the name “Vidiot” has posted a photoset of Auriti doing his work – click here to check it out.

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Help LinuxCaffe Sort Through Their Tech Stuff!

This article originally appeared in Global Nerdy.

Jawas carrying R2-D2 in "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope"

Tim Hildred of LinuxCaffe writes:

We have in our storage space a veritable heap of donated pre-loved electronics, some of which we hope to recycle and repurpose, some of which is probably junk. What we need as a small team of people who, in exchange for coffee and snacks, will help us sort it out.  There will probably be some spoils as well, as those who help should be able to help themselves to some things. So, bring your friends, help us make our heap into something workable, help the community to thrive, and help your blood-caffiene levels to remain stable. We’ll love you for ever.

The sorting will take place in two shifts:

  • Tomorrow, Saturday March 21st, from 12:00 noon-ish until 4:00 p.m.-ish
  • Wednesday, March 25th, from 5 p.m.-ish until 9:00 p.m.-ish.

If you’ve got a technical bent, some free time and community spirit, come on down to LinuxCaffe and give them a hand sorting through their donated electronics!