2022 in review and goals for 2023 : Work edition

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

This year has been my most professionally challenging year for at least the last decade and all in a good way.

Prior to this year, I fixed complex IT problems. I did project management to make things work when there was no good project manager allocated, I did business liaison as a specialist, again just to facilitate the work I was delivering, but this last year its all been very different.

This year each of the 3 core areas of work has been a deliverable in its own right and my competency held to a high standard.

Management: People management on a much larger multi region team with different levels and types of people with different challenges, multiple projects all going on at the same time and not projects in the contract way, where you keep them all separate, projects that merged together, projects dependent on each other. There was an awful lot of plates spinning, In this, delegation has been my biggest challenge the scale of deliverables required has truly meant I have had to “Work Smarter not Harder” 1.

Technical: The normal technical growth continues and technology keeps on changing at its insane pace, so it was all in all absolutely fabulous, a real challenge but one that has been my bread and butter for 2 decades so its just a case of fitting it in with the other learning needs.

Business: The main project I am working on weaves multiple areas of business together and to my knowledge has not been done like this before, so a lot of truly complex business challenges come up suddenly 2, thus I’m expanding my knowledge on a daily basis, indeed I put aside 7 hours a week on training to accelerate this, this is making things that I only saw in the distance before, snap into sharp focus.

2023: My only fear for the upcoming year is it won’t be as challenging, because I’m enjoying it hugely 3. I am learning far more about the people side of project management, dealing with people who are quite frankly not wanting to come onto the same page as you, something that you don’t tend to have with clients when you’re a contractor. From the business side, I am going solidly for my CII certification and full SOX certification, so can reach a point where I can argue with authority with an actuary or with compliance lawyers. The constant technology push I’ve always loved. It’ll just keep going through. I spend my time learning, I spend my time digging through things and having fun. It’s a joy. It’s a non stress part of my job, but thankfully I still have lots to learn.

Bring it on!

  1. Mark makes a retching sounding sound at using such a phrase[↩]
  2. Even with the best planning done by competent BA’s[↩]
  3. My Wife says that its the least unhappy she has seen me in a while[↩]

Morning Energy drinks V2

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment
One of my big sins has always been energy drinks. I absolutely adore them, but I know they are bad for me, all the people that care about my health have very gently been trying to get me to cut them out. I have tried SodaStream with healthy energy powder, I’ve tried some of the more expensive non bad drinks, and I have tried cold brewed coffee. But none of them have been perfect. But we’re getting closer. The latest iteration is a type of cold brew coffee smoothie with Yfood + bits and I think I am getting much better at it. To recap: The best cold brew coffee maker at a cheep price is the Hario Cold Brew Coffee Pot Mizudashi Red 1000ml , which I slow filter and then leave in the fridge over night (as long as I can) this gives a very none bitter coffee, I would advise you actually get 2 of these jugs as leaving it for 24+ hours gives the best result. Next Yfood has turned out to be the best meal replacement , and far nicer than Huel (it tastes far less like porridge), I find Yfood smells far more like Nesquik but doesn’t seem to be any worse for you, it seems that it’s a much finer powder and in any cheapo blender works perfectly, it produces a lovely near milkshake level of drink. Made with cold brew coffee instead of water and you have your morning rocket fuel while tasting great. understandably the coffee flavour works best with actual coffee. The banana one I had high hopes for but it’s just not right. A recent addition to the mix is Athletic Greens, this is a good dietary powder and the only one I have found that does not swamp the other tastes. Unfortunately I do have a serious sugar craving and Golden syrup is my base line, I try to have better option such as Maple syrup or a banana if I have planned correctly. A storage medium for this kind of stuff is actually far harder than I would have expected as the stuff gets in to every crack and if you don’t clean it it sets rock hard, I have found that a couple of good options: the 330ml classic LockNLock work well to split the drink into a breakfast and a lunch portion and never leak, but seem to have been phased out by the parent company, more practically is the Chillies Coffee Cup 2 which is VERY easy to clean and works just right. Lastly the blender, I have found that just about anything works with Yfood, so no worries there.  

Christopher Odd Youtube Channel Review

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

This is a social review post done when I should be doing technical articles, but I REALLY enjoy this YouTube channel and as this particular YouTuber is moving to running his channel full time it seemed like a good opportunity to do a review.

The channel is called @ChristopherOdd and it’s a ‘let’s play’ channel or ‘long play’ as I used to know them, in which someone plays full video games while narrating what they are doing, there are hundreds of them out there so what differentiates this one from others?

  1. Christopher Odds voice: His voice is far more like an audio book narrator than a gamer, he doesn’t get hysterical, he doesn’t make you wince, he doesn’t get over excited in a fake way (though he suffers badly from jump scares in horror games) it’s a pleasant dulcet tone to listen too, as someone that listens to a huge number of audio books I’ve come to really appreciate the quality of a narrator, and as far as I’m concerned Christopher Odd is the best narrator for games that I have currently met on any platform.
  2. Mental speed: I don’t know his age and I haven’t looked into it 1 but he’s about my mental speed, he solves problems at about the speed I do, I don’t want to jump up and down and yell for him to do things faster or slower, he just thinks at a nice pace and I feel after he has completed the game that I have seen all of that game and that it is as complete a play through as I would make.
  3. Being correct without being too correct: Christopher is constantly correcting himself while he’s playing, you can see from one video to another that he is learning and changing his opinions as things grow and change, Cultural slips are corrected, things said in the heat of the moment are amended instantly and this is at a time when his popularity is at about 300000 YouTube followers, a time when a lot of YouTubers think they can get away with saying offensive things without any backlash. It makes you think he is a good person in real life.

These and the choices of the games he plays result in a channel I can watch all day, a rarity in this day and age 🙂

But even if he is a joy to listen too, why would I want to watch a video of someone playing computer games? for me there are two reasons:

  1. He plays a series of games that I would never play!! I do not want to play Dark Souls, all the Dark Souls series are massively frustrating to play and that’s not something I am interesting in experiencing, but I am fascinated with their worlds and want to learn about them 2.
  2. He plays most of his games based on their story and that story is often better than a lot of TV series. To me watching him play is as enjoyable as a series, in fact more so because I can predict most elements of a TV story line (As can most people) but when watching a game there will be surprise elements based purely on his game play, over and above the story, the same cannot be said of TV.

All this has meant that I am now a Patron supporter of his channel and treat the news of him going full time with great delight, his channel is by far the one I watch the most and at the current quality I see no reason to change that in the future. 🙂

  1. it feels a bit stalkerish to start looking at peoples age and things like that[↩]
  2. After watching the play through I now feel invested in the game and From Software actually get money out of me when they normally wouldn’t as I have bought Dark Souls books and merchandise.[↩]

Missing A Conference

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks my social media stream has been filled with pictures and memories of times gone by for Lotusphere/Connect, these memories have been more than a little bit painful as they were all great times, a meeting time for great friends as well as for a community spirit that I’ve never met in any other technology, not Salesforce, nor Java, node or MongoDB,

This community still does exist, even though it has shrunk over the last couple of years, however there is hope that with the recent changes and the hopeful reinvigoration by IBM/HCL as well as the constant work of such core community leaders such as Gabriella Davis that it will return and maybe even grow, having basically opted out of the community for the last year or so through a mixture of client demands and ever-increasing work load, I am now reminded by these pictures and memories how important such a community is, and not just to work and to business but to friendship and general sanity,

Long live the yellow bubble!!!

⇑ My First Lotusphere, young fresh-faced and not fat



⇑ Presenting for the first time at Lotusphere

⇑ On the Piss with good friends

⇑ The famous “all bloggers” photo

A Year In Review 2017

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

 

So here comes the year in review blog post. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never had a year that’s been so head-down and teeth-gritted

Most of what would be considered the fluff or interesting things that you do in a year has been missing entirely, no conferences, no training courses, no anything other than client work. that is not to say I haven’t done new things, each week, each month seems filled with new technology, new things to code, new things to learn but it’s all been work that has to be delivered, work that has to be produced on time.

This resulted in the company itself doing well and thanks to that, I’m in a better position then I think I’ve ever been before, a state that is all for the good because what with Brexit happening soon, UK companies now face an uncertain future so using the next two years to prepare for that is something that is going to be really important.

Looking forward to the coming year it looks as if I have finally reached a point in my career progression where I do not have a major on-site client, all of my work can be done remotely which is a goal I’ve been aiming for for some time, but it’s still a little bit stunning to finally reach it, it will mean I need even more focus in how I work and that will give me a couple of extra blog posts as I formalise the way I behave on a day to day basis but I finally have the flexibility I’ve been after.

It’s always good to look back on the year and try and update your CV, what are you an expert in? what can you sell yourself as? what are you aiming for going forward?
To be frank, knowing technology by rote plays less and less a part of what I provide my clients (both LDC and None LDC).

What I’m good at is learning new1 things. In adapting and providing clients with what they want when they want it. The stuff that I’ve been hired to do going forward this year and things that I’ve been doing for the last 8 months at least hasn’t really been solely technologically orientated, no one has said “oh are you an expert in x” they have just hired me to solve a problem, to make an issue go away, how that is done has been irrelevant or has already been set in stone by corporate decision.

However, I wouldn’t be me unless I still loved new technology and rolled in it like freshly cut grass.

  1. JavaScript frameworks: JavaScript is still the internet darling it has been for the last couple of years, but the frameworks come so fast that I now just poke my nose in each one that passes to see if it does anything ground-breaking or if it genuinely replaces one I am currently using.
  2. Networks and encryption: This has been an odd one to go back to and get up to date with, so many of the solutions I have had to provide this year have not been code related, or rather code has not been the best way to solve the problem, hardware and network performance issues don’t just go away with platform as a service, if anything they get more complex as they are not as transparent.
  3. Salesforce offshoots: Salesforce continues to keep buying things and integrating them into their ecosystem so things like AMPScript have become commonplace.

But there have been losses, this year I lost my IBM champion status, there was the brief pang of “Bugger”, but writing this I can’t say I disagree with the decision, I did no conferences this year2, and thus no speaking gigs, this blog was very quiet on the IBM front, and all the stuff I did for IBM was behind the scenes at client sites and a Champion really does have to be seen …. C’est la vie.

2018

What do I think I will be doing in 2018?

  1. Practical Cloud – The cloud has changed so many things and made them better, but in some ways we have gone backwards and there is a lot of work in such regressions, for example, inter-machine network speed that had reached really rather fast rates on internal networks has suddenly tanked when it is measured between existing onside stuff and new cloud services.
  2. Hard Decisions – Over the last year, I have seen a growing trend of business actually having budget and finally gritting their teeth over modernizing apps that have been around for 10+ years.
  3. Security – Even things that have been trusted for years have failed in the last 12 months, and while there are lots of security people around that will load up your network and apps with new standards and firewalls, there does not seem to be anyone that is willing to fix the trashed performance when the heavy boots of the security forces have been in and done their work.

I suspect quite a lot of my year will be spent using both new and old tech to get things working again after someone has enacted the latest company edict……. 🙂

  1. And by “New” I just mean new to me.[↩]
  2. LotusSphere/IBM Connect/IBM Think was in direct conflict with a client delivery, I’m not travelling to the US unless I have to for personal reasons so that cuts out the regional US conferences, UKICON was cancelled and I screwed up my passport for Engage[↩]