Soft Skills / Business

A master stops punches before they are thrown. Can you conquer conflict before it conquers you? It doesn't matter if you are a ranger at Burning Man, if you are running a hackerspace, if you are working for a startup, or if you need someone to drop their fists before they drop you -- you will face social challenges and how you answer those challenges will determine your future comfort or maybe even your present safety. Thriving in any situation where a community is involved requires certain skills. This talk covers skills that will help you navigate personal and professional [...]

How do we become software developers with the knowledge and skill to do our work well? Training junior developers is an essential piece of building a successful team, but it's a complex and challenging task. The lessons shared in this talk are drawn from experiences training, coaching, and mentoring over 50 junior developers in the past 2 years, and successes, failures, challenges, and rewards will be discussed. Attendees will learn strategies for identifying potential, assessing team fit, guiding technical growth, and coaching new developers in soft skills and interpersonal development.

You’re talented, accomplished and successful. You are a technical expert or a high level manager. People think you have it all together. Yet you still think to yourself “Oh my gosh! I don’t know what I’m doing! And everyone is about to figure it out! They’re on to me!” Many smart and successful people suffer from the Impostor Syndrome: the persistent feeling of not measuring up to their resume. They are an overachiever, but an under-believer. It’s a cognitive distortion that is especially prevalent in technical and creative fields. If this is you, you are not alone. It’s estimated that [...]