These are a collection of articles that may not fit well into the primary categories of Dev Leader. Many of them are likely older articles that still offer value but are not exactly aligned to the organization of more recent content on the website.
Why Did I Consider Paid for Ads? I wrote a post about focusing on some of my strengths in order to minimize risk in new areas, and part of that meant focusing on increasing brand awareness for DevLeader as a proving ground. The idea of driving more web traffic to my blog via ads came up because I was interested in experimenting with Instagram ads for my show car branding, but not knowing anything about paid for ads made taking that first step feel pretty risky. What should I expect for paying for ads? What will $1 get me? What will $10 get me? I have no idea where to start with this kind of thing, so I felt it was important to use my more solid brand, DevLeader, as the basis for this experiment. If I can watch what happens…
I recently wrote about how and why I'm looking into doubling down on my strengths to improve a weakness, and I figured it would be a great follow-up to try and explain the specifics of my strategy. It's an interesting learning opportunity for me, so why not share it with those that are interested? The format of this post is really just to call out the specifics of some strategies I'm looking at exploring when building the brand for my vehicle to help with sponsorship opportunities. Reach Outside Core Audiences This one shouldn't be a shock to you if you're familiar with this blog already. It's primarily aimed at programming, leadership in a tech environment, and self-reflecting as a means to improve. One of my goals is to explore attracting other audiences that might have a bit of overlap with…
Double Down: Why I'm Working This I haven't written in a while, and despite setting a goal for myself to start writing more, I'm not going to kick my own butt over not getting around to it. Actually, if anything my priorities and goals have been evolving over the past while and it's been a great growing opportunity. Previously, I wanted to start up writing again to work on my ability to self-reflect. In all honesty, other factors came into play and this started to happen more naturally without forcing myself into writing more. Now that my goals are changing again, I'm realizing that I need to come up with some creative solutions for addressing them. For total transparency, one of my hobby goals is creating a brand for my show car, Ignantt. It's a fun hobby of mine, and…
What's Up With Resolutions? It's that time of year! You know, where everyone is thinking back on all of the things they wish they had actually accomplished this year and they're convincing themselves they'll get it done next year. It's time to set some New Year's resolutions! But what's up with that? Why does it take people a whole year to reflect on what's going right or wrong in their life and try to change their direction? Why does it take you a year to realize your diet and exercise regime is something you couldn't stick to and you're no better off than you were last year? Why were you still unmotivated in your career doing the same old thing? Why didn't you get your head in the game for school? Why did you continue to pursue toxic relationships? Continuous…
Identifying when you need to refocus It happens to everyone at some point to varying degrees, for various reasons, and at different times in our lives--but it'll happen! You hit a period or a rut where you can't keep your focus on continuing to be successful (and I'm over-generalizing that for a good reason). Maybe this means you can't focus at work to perform at an optimal level. Maybe you're falling off the diet you've been working hard on. Maybe your training in the gym or for your sport is taking a hit because your head isn't in the game. Maybe you find yourself unable to hit the books studying or completing your projects in school. It can look different for everyone. There are a bunch of different little warning signs that things aren't quite on track and you need…
Background on Timur's Kernel I got fed up with having a pretty crummy head unit in my 2012 Audi TT RS (named Ignantt), and decided that it was time to take matters into my own hands. Part of doing a Nexus 7 head unit install in a vehicle involves powering the tablet up with a USB on-the-go (OTG) cable and being able to not only power the device but also plug in USB devices into the tablet to use. In order to get this working, everyone seems to be relying on this kernel from Timur. As per Timur's site: This feature allows you to connect one or more USB slave devices to your tablet and charge it at the same time. This allows you, say, to operate an external USB DAC without the tablet ever running out of power. To…
Burn Out I had a lot of really positive feedback from my friends and family after writing about my experiences of going through burn out. If you haven't read the post, check it out here. I've done some article summaries on the topic of burn out before, but I feel like it's probably a good topic to bring up again in light of my recent post. For a bit of background, burn out is a process that can occur to an individual that's dedicating too much time to a particular activity. It leads to an imbalance in terms of what his or her time is put towards and can result in a person feeling depressed without any energy. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of summarizing it in one quick sentence: Burnout is a psychological term that refers to long-term…
Leadership Everyone has their own variation of what leadership means. For me, leadership means empowering others to accomplish their goals and providing assistance when they need it. There were a few articles that came up on LinkedIn this week that I wanted to share with everyone and discuss how they fit into my perspective on leadership. Articles Does Your Team Work With You Or For You?: Kwame Manu-Antwi opens up the article in an interesting fashion. When I read the title of the article, I figured this was going to be the typical leadership vs management debate. However, Kwame goes into describing a scenario where he had a humbling experience from one of his team that made some sacrifices for him. This was truly an example of working for him. The entire second half of the article shares a bunch of…
No More Silence. I've been pretty quiet over the past month and a bit, but that doesn't mean that nothing is going on behind the scenes. I've been busy (maybe a little bit too busy?) and I haven't really put in the time to create or share any content online. When I over commit, something has to give, unfortunately. Okay, so what's been happening? New Hires! We've brought on some amazing talent to help at work, and that's always incredibly exciting. We had Chris Sippel return to us after finishing up his final portion of school. Chris is a bit quirky (and that's really why we love him) and started with us in the early days. Pumped to have you back, buddy! We brought on board Jason Gregory and Matthew Beamer who bring a host of skills that are truly…
Happy St. Patty's Day! I hope everyone who was celebrating St. Patrick's Day was able to not only have fun but stay safe doing so. Of course, when there is drinking associated with a holiday it can be easy to get carried away. It's always a great idea to have driving arrangements or the option to sleep at a friend's place set up before you head out to celebrate. This year I was able to celebrate with a handful of my university friends that I don't get to see as often as I'd like. I haven't been drinking much at all now for nearly half a year, so I stuck to my one Irish coffee to meet my liquor allowance. We all had a blast discussing where our lives have taken us so far, and it's great to see everyone…
