@brwngrldev - December, 2017
Hey! Welcome to the tenth issue of my newsletter. BIG NEWS: I’m moving to Amsterdam! Yes, in a few weeks me and my family will be heading off to the Netherlands. We’re really excited about the change and look forward to lots of new experiences.
In the meantime, we’re busy saying our goodbyes and shutting down our lives here in the U.S. Moving an entire family overseas is no small feat. I totally underestimated how much was involved. Have you ever made a huge move? Any tips you’d like to share with me? I’m just a tweet away.
But for now I…just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
Recent Engagements
This past month I had the opportunity to speak at KotlinConf (San Francisco, CA) and DevFest Florida (Orlando, FL). This was really special to me as I got to share my latest talk: RxJava in Baby Steps. Reactive Extensions has been one of those things that I avoided because it just seemed so unapproachable. I took it as a personal challenge to learn Rx well enough that I could explain it to someone else in the easiest way possible. I feel that I achieved my goal with this talk.
I spent hours researching the subject, read 2 books, and watched countless conference talks. I wanted to make sure I did the talk justice. A first for me was working with an Illustrator to craft my slides. I shared my vision with Emily and we came up with different concepts. It was a lot of fun! I even explained how RxJava Observables worked to her so that she could develop the perfect animation. I’m fortunate that I was in a position to afford working with someone of her caliber. And I really look forward to seeing what pops into my head for my next big talk.
Books I’m Reading
Leviathan Wakes - http://amzn.to/2kpCZ9W
I like science fiction and I love mysteries, so I decided to find some books that do both. And this is the first one that I have come across. So far it’s pretty good. Humans live in the solar system and there is this odd “beef” between people born on Earth versus those born elsewhere. There’s gang warfare, hostage situations and a kidnapping. Seems like this book has it all. Have you read any good sci-fi mysteries? If so, send me recommendations please!
Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting Your Worth - http://amzn.to/2iUw2gG
I was scrolling through the Business section in my library app and this title jumped out to me. One thing I’ve constantly struggled with is getting adequate pay and recognition at work. In fact, one of my favorite poems that I’ve written is about being passed up for a promotion. Remind me to share that with you one day…moving on for now.
In this book, Mika Brzezinski, starts off by sharing her personal story of how she was getting in her own way. She then goes on to interview others and shares their perspective on getting your worth as a woman. I also really appreciated the research on why many women don't negotiate their salary and the real reasons why the gender wage gap persists. It was especially interesting the difference between how men and women see themselves and their personal worth. If you’ve been curious about similar things, I’d give this book a read.
Let’s Talk Podcasts
The Speaker Lab - How to Know If You’re Worth Higher Speaking Fees
In this episode, Grant talks to Ian Altman about how he views speaking fees and how to make sure you’re speaking to the right audience. My favorite quote from the episode was: “You can never charge more than you think you’re worth.” Basically, you need to make sure you’re delivering value every time you speak. If you’re a speaker, give this one a listen.
The Tim Ferris Show - The 3 Critical Rules of Branding
I hadn’t heard of the concept of “1,000 True Fans” until this episode. It essentially means that you design a product or service for this specific group of people that uniquely solves one of their pain points. I really like the thought process behind this. Working in a start-up it can be distracting to try and be “all things to all people”. It’s much better to focus on a smaller group and use them to be the core of your business when you’re starting off. In this episode, Tim covers what “branding” means to him. Then he goes on to share concrete examples of how you can apply his critical rules of “branding”. (Note: This episode uses some profanity.)
Must Watch Videos
Idiomatic Interop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlggmRMadsU
I had the chance to attend this talk live at KotlinConf. It was really well done and full of useful information. In it, Keven Most, shares strategies and tools that enable you to write code that is clean, safe, and idiomatic whether it's being called from Java or from Kotlin. Specifically, he goes over some of the annotations that make it easier to work with Kotlin code in Java.
Chief Technology Officer Career Guide - https://goo.gl/mUvDsw
The longer I’m in this industry the more I think about what’s next for me. Exploring the various options out there just makes sense. So I came across this course and watched the entire thing over two days. I had a general sense of what the CTO does, but I didn’t realize how much is actually involved. Drew Falkman, talks about how being CTO is a people job and most can expect to spend at least 20% of their time on hiring efforts. He then goes on to cover each of the major aspects of a CTO’s job:
Their Team
Product Management
Technology
Development and Product Lifecycle
Marketing and Communication
Business and Entrepreneurship
Definitely recommend it!
My Recent Videos
I’ve been putting together a course for Caster.io on how to use Git in Android Studio. I start out by covering the various user interface components available in the Version Control Tool Window. Then I move on to creating commits, working with branches and understanding changelists. Initially I’ll be exploring all of this functionality working with a local repository. I also plan on showing how Android Studio can make it easier to work with remote repositories as well. Check out the videos => here.
Until next time, thanks for reading!
"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
- Maya Angelou
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