The Start-Up of YOU: 21st Century Career Strategy

I attended this session because my role as a Marketing Technologist often feels “squishy”. There aren’t a lot of Marketing Technologists in the wild. And I hoped this would give me some tips on how to advance my role and the value I can provide. Not sure it met those needs, but I thought the speakers provided important advice.

Social Tags:

• @bencasnocha
• @quixotic
• #startYOU

Ben Casnocha & Reid Hoffman

[notice]The working world has changed[/notice]

• Career Escalator doesn’t work anymore
• Death of the traditional career path
• Company’s are no longer loyal to employees and vice versa

So What Do We Do About It?

• It’s a very similar to what entrepreneur’s experience in starting a new business
• Mindset = “Permanent Beta” – circumstances are always in flux, you are always a work in progress
• Example: Jeff Bezos starts each communication with “it’s day one”

Develop THREE Specific Skills

1. Plan to Adapt
2. Strengthen Your Network
3. Take Intelligent Risks

1. Plan to Adapt

Life is not like a set of dominos that you set up and knock down. You need to have “Flexible Persistance” the ability to move forward with purpose, but able to readily adapt.

Plan to Adapt in 140

• Engage in career planning but don’t set firm plans
• Plan A is what you’re doing right now, your current implementation of your competitive advantage
• Always think about Plan Bs: parameters of motion, possible pivots
• Always have a Plan Z: a certain fallback option where you can reset.

ABZ Planning

Plan A – Current execution strategy

Plan B – Set of opportunities and how you might move

Plan Z – (what allows you to take risks) What to do when things trend negative. Planning framework provides a way to strategically adjust to the situation.

2. Strengthen Your Network

Develop strong alliances and loose ties. Strong alliances are mutually beneficial partnerships. Loose ties are acquaintances that you develop. The benefit of loose ties is the add diversity to you world. Your friends tend to act and do as you do. New ideas and opportunities are less likely to come from your close network, but loose ties may work in different cities or industries and will inject a diversity that you cannot get from your close network.

Network Building in 140

• Entrepreneurs build networks to build companies. You need a virtual company around you in your career
• Be explicit about who your professional allies are. Help them and let yourself be helped
• Weaker ties tend to introduce diverse streams of intelligence, and alert you to different sorts of opportunities

3. Take Intelligent Risks

Lean into risk. Position yourself where luck can help you. Always have several options that may pan out. Manage risk by vaccinating yourself against it. Introduce a bit of risk into your career to be more flexible and adaptive. Taking small risks builds career resilience.

Take Intelligence Risk in 140

• Many think you get career stability by minimizing all risk. Ironically, in a changing world, tha’s one of the riskiest things you can do
• If you don’t find risk, risk finds you
• Volunteer for extra work, run experiences, change jobs, freelance
• By introducing regular volatility into your career, you make surprise survival able. You learn to “absorb shocks gracefully”

Photo Credit [sxsw]

Learn to Code and Make the Software You Want

I attended this session because I want to be more self sufficient as a Marketing Technologist and not rely on developers as much as I am. It turned out to be my favorite session. Background: Neither of them could code a few years ago. They walked the audience through the steps they went through to learn to code. They learned how to create the ideas in their mind and bring them into the world.

Social Tags:

• @innonate
• @vacanti
• #sxhope

Pre-requisites

You have to have a specific need, not “I need to code.”

[important]One and only one pre-requisite: really, really need something specific to be built.[/important]

Outsourcing your code dev is difficult. They don’t know what’s in your head. No matter how long your documented tech spec requirements are they can’t make realtime decisions about what feels right they way you can. A benefit of being able to create your own code allows you to test out the ideas before involving partners, investors or anyone else.

The Big Secret:

[important]”It’s not that hard”[/important]

Both continually had the realization that coding is not as hard as it seems. The ecosystem has grown up and it’s easier for non-coders to code. In the last 5 years it’s gotten much easier.

What Does it Take?

[important]”The Sweat Lodge”[/important]

Take a chunk of time and do nothing but learn to code. Sweat it out. At the end of Day 1 and 2 – Westheimer still had no clue on what he was doing. After 5 days he finally had a clue of how to achieve accomplish his coding goal. You need a dedicated block of time to get over the early hump. Although coding easier, there are somethings that are really, really hard and you need dedicated time to work through it.

Nate Westheimer

Vinicius Vacanti

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Coding Components: High-Level Explanation in 3 steps

User Request: “http://yourdomain.com/actions?details=number_two”

Server: “Yo app! I got this request. Check it…”

Your App: “Sweet! Going to do some magic. Here’s the result.”

Things Not To Worry About

Don’t worry about much – get it up and running.

• Security
• Scaling Issues
• Writing Beautiful Code
• Maintainability of Code

When you’ll need these things, you’ll either have a team to do it or you’ll have moved on.

Learning Python/Django

Vicante bought the O’Reilly book, read 4 chapters and that was enough to understand the basics. Django sits on top of Python. Start by learning the basics of Python. Examples of Django include Instagram and Hunch Resources:

• http://tech.yipit.com <– 15 resources to learn Django
• http://djangobook.com is a good, but old resource.

Learning Ruby on Rails

Resources Westheimer used:

• http://railstutorial.org
• http://railscasts.com

So which one should you learn? –> Python or Ruby?

Doesn’t matter which, but you do have to pick. Decision criteria: Do you know someone you can call for help? Can you call them in a tough moment?

Learning HTML/CSS

Resources: (affiliate links)

• HTML, XHMTL & CSS by Elizabeth Castro
• CSS mastery by Andy Budd
• Chrome browser plug in “Page inspector“

Help Yourself

[important]24 hour rule. Figure it out. Don’t ask for help for 24 hours[/important]

It’s okay to write ugly code that works.  You learn by trying. There is value in that journey, it’s better than a leg up by phoning a friend.

Still Need Help? Just Ask

If after a day you haven’t solved the problem, go to an online forum. Responses often happen the same day. Resources:

• http://stackoverflow.com
• https://github.com/
• http://forrst.com

Open-Source Projects

At the moment there are well over 4,000 site examples with the code. It’s a great way to see how others are solving a similar problem. Check out djangosites.com.

Sites They Built:

• http://140it.com
• http://unhub.com [site down at posting time]
• http://yipit.com
• http://ohours.org

Find Authors At:

• http://vacanti.me
• http://innonate.com

Photo Credit [sxsw]

Change Happens: Improv For An Unpredictable World

My first session of Day 1 was a fantastic dual panel on how improvisational skills can help one adapt to change. Amanda and Jordan Hirsh gave a fun presentation including pulling volunteers from the audience to put the skills into practice with short skits.

Update: 3/15

You can listen to the session audio here.

Here are more Think Improv resources.

Social Tags

• #improv4sll
• @thinkimprov
• @amanda_hirsh
• @tfish77
• thinkimprov.com

The Bad News:

• Life defies your expecations (the script in your head)
• Going off script is hard
• It’s easy to lose your way
• Stress 🙁

[notice]The Challenge: how to adapt to change.[/notice]

Amanda & Jordan Hirsh

The Good News: Improv Can Help You

1. Expect the unexpected
2. Adapt effectively to change
3. Know your objective
4. Lead & inspire

The Best News:

• You are already improvising
• You can learn to improvise better

How Improve can help you (in detail)

1. Expect The Unexpected

• Reset your frame
• Recognize you’re in an improv show
• Proceed accordingly

2. Adapt to Change: “YES, AND”

• Accept the reality of what’s happening (“YES”)
• You don’t have to accept the outcome, just the circumstance
• Build upon that reality (“AND”)
  • Attitudinal: something is happening AND I have other things in my life
  • Actionable: something is happening AND I’m going to take action
• Resistance is futile

3. Know Your Objective

• Circumstances may change…but your objective can remain the same
• Find a new way to achieve your goal
• “Hold on to your shit” Don’t forget your goals

4. Lead & Inspire

• Bring “yes, and” to the party (or meeting room).
• React quickly – trust yourself and others will trust you, too.

Photo Credit [sxsw]