…is that I’m hoping to master this:
Tag: Microsoft
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Where I’m Working Today
This is a post that would normally go into just Global Nerdy, but I thought it would also be of interest to non-techies, which is why I’m posting it here. Enjoy!
This Week’s Webcast
How to Become a Great Leader is the topic of this week’s Ignite Your Career, Microsoft Canada’s and CIPS’ webcast series aimed at helping you further develop your career with opinions and advice from experts in Canada’s tech industry. Here’s the abstract for the webcast:
Being a great manager does not by default also mean you are a great leader. For some people, being a leader comes intuitively, for others it is something that requires both self awareness and leading by example. This session will focus on what a panel of Managers/Leaders has done in order to further their development of leader qualities. Topics in this area are wide ranging and based on webcast participation will include such as goal setting, importance of goal alignment, motivation techniques, nurturing trust, developing listening skills and coaching team members. Be sure to listen in and join the conversation with this panel of experts for what should be a very interesting wrap up to the Manager series.
The panelists for this webcast are:
Stuart Crawford shares his experiences and serves the Calgary Small Business community in his role as the Vice President of Business Development for Bulletproof InfoTech, a leading Microsoft Small Business Partner with offices in Red Deer and Calgary.
Barry Gervin is a founding Partner of ObjectSharp. As a Principal Consultant, Barry provides technical leadership to his valued clients, staff, and the development community. Barry currently serves as a Microsoft Regional Director in Southern Ontario and has received the Microsoft MVP Award for Solutions Architecture for the past 3 years.
Dana Epp researches software security and focuses on strong authentication and identity assurance solutions at Scorpion Software Corp. As a computer security software architect, Dana has spent the last 15 years focusing on software development with a particular emphasis on security engineering.
Greg Lane is the current Chair of the Canadian Council of Information Technology Professionals (CCITP) of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS). Greg is currently employed with Avanade as the Director Business Development Public Service for Canada.
The webcast will take place this Tuesday, March 24th, from 12:00 noon (Eastern) to 1:00 p.m.. Ignite Your Career webcasts are free of charge – all you have to do is register to listen using your Windows Live ID (which is also free).
Ignite Your Career isn’t about any specific technology or vendor; it’s about maximizing your potential at work and helping you come up with a career plan. No matter what platform or tools you work with, we’re sure that you’ll find this webcast series informative and helpful.
Previous Webcasts
All Ignite Your Career webcasts are recorded and archived so you can listen to them on demand. As with the live webcasts, there’s no charge to listen to them; you just have to register with a Windows Live ID.
The webcasts we’ve had so far in this series are:
- Industry Insights and Trends
The nature of technology is one of continual change; a fact of life for professionals in the ICT industry. As a result, you need to be on top of what is happening in the industry in order to position yourself and your organization to benefit from these trends. This panel discussion will arm you with the information you need from experts in the ICT industry in order to stay on top of your game.
Speakers: Joel Semeniuk, Jeff Kempiners, Jay Payette and Paul Swinwood. - Discovering Your Trusted Resources
Building a set of information sources and connecting with the community at-large are critical to your success in the ICT industry. This session brings successful community, technology, and information leaders together to share their experiences in discovering these resources. Our experts will help you learn how to identify credible sources and find the right tools, links and techniques to keep you up to date in a world of constant change.
Speakers: Michael J. Sikorsky, Richard Campbell, and John Bristowe. - How to Establish and Maintain a Healthy Work/Life Balance
With mobile technologies and our always-on culture, it’s imperative to establish and maintain a balance between work and life. If your only time to manage change in your environment is after hours, how can you maintain a healthy balance without burning out? How do you manage change so that you can develop your career and spend time with loved ones? This panel discussion will connect you to individuals who strive to establish and maintain this balance.
Speakers: Mack Male, Cameron McKay, Paul Gossen, Mark Blevis
I wrote this article for the blogs Canadian Developer Connection and Global Nerdy, but I thought that it might be interesting to people outside the tech industry. It’s about a particular webcast in an ongoing series by Microsoft called Ignite Your Career. If you’re interested in catching the webcast, it takes place this Tuesday at 12:00 noon Eastern, runs for an hour and costs nothing.
This Week’s Topic
This week’s topic for Ignite Your Career – our webcast series featuring experts from the Canadian tech industry and aimed at supporting your career development – is one that’s on a lot of people’s minds: How to Establish and Maintain a Healthy Work/Life Balance. Here’s the abstract:
With mobile technologies and our always-on culture, it’s imperative to establish and maintain a balance between work and life. If your only time to manage change in your environment is after hours, how can you maintain a healthy balance without burning out? How do you manage change so that you can develop your career and spend time with loved ones? This panel discussion will connect you to individuals who strive to establish and maintain this balance.
This webcast’s panelists are:
Mack Male
Mack is a software developer, entrepreneur, and social media guy. During the day he works for Questionmark Computing. Most of the rest of the time, he’s keeping up-to-date on the latest trends and technologies, and loves sharing what he learns with others. Mack is particularly passionate about his hometown, Edmonton, and does his best to expose everything it has to offer.
Cameron McKay
Cameron works for McKesson Canada, one of the largest Healthcare companies in the world as the Team Leader of the Infrastructure and Support Services Group in Toronto. An expert in Virtualization and Green IT, Cameron enjoys sharing his knowledge with the IT community through speaking engagements, blogs, and webcasts.
Paul Gossen
After 30 years as a successful serial entrepreneur and business leadership innovator Paul Gossen is well known for his credibility and high impact results in corporate coaching, team productivity and organizational transformation
Mark Blevis
Mark Blevis is an energetic public speaker, social media strategist, community leader, independent media producer and self-proclaimed Content Paleontologist. He is considered a thought-leader on social media and its potential and is regularly interviewed on radio and television.
Catching This Webcast
This webcast will first be broadcast this Tuesday, March 17th at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time (9:00 a.m. Pacific) and will be an hour long. It costs nothing to catch an Ignite Your Career webcast – all you have to do is register online with your Windows Live ID (which is also free).
Ignite Your Career is about maximizing your potential at work and helping you come up with a career plan in these difficult economic times. It’s not tied to any technology or vendor, so no matter what platform or tools you work with, we’re sure that you’ll find this webcast series informative and helpful.
Previous Ignite Your Career Webcasts
In case your missed the other two webcasts in this series, worry not – we’ve got them archived! Once again, they’re free to listen to – all you have to do is register online with your Windows Live ID.
The webcasts we’ve had so far in this series are:
- Industry Insights and Trends
The nature of technology is one of continual change; a fact of life for professionals in the ICT industry. As a result, you need to be on top of what is happening in the industry in order to position yourself and your organization to benefit from these trends. This panel discussion will arm you with the information you need from experts in the ICT industry in order to stay on top of your game.
Speakers: Joel Semeniuk, Jeff Kempiners, Jay Payette and Paul Swinwood. - Discovering Your Trusted Resources
Building a set of information sources and connecting with the community at-large are critical to your success in the ICT industry. This session brings successful community, technology, and information leaders together to share their experiences in discovering these resources. Our experts will help you learn how to identify credible sources and find the right tools, links and techniques to keep you up to date in a world of constant change.
Speakers: Michael J. Sikorsky, Richard Campbell, and John Bristowe.
[Creative Commons photo by "Cpt. Spock".]
My first Coffee and Code day – a day when I work at a wifi-equipped cafe rather than my home office or the Microsoft offices in order to be very accessible – was a success. For more, check out my article on the Coffee and Code blog.
Coffee and Code is an idea I’ve been meaning to try out for some time. Every so often – perhaps once a week – I plan to work somewhere other than my home office or Microsoft’s offices but instead spend the day working in one of Toronto’s wifi-equipped cafe.
The idea is to make myself available to you, to answer your questions and talk about Microsoft, programming, the tech job market, games, accordions or whatever topic strikes your fancy. I’ll be pretty easy to spot: just look for the guy with both a laptop and an accordion.
For this inaugural Coffee and Code session, I’ll be at Urbana Coffee (1033 Bay Street, a couple of blocks north of Wellesley, at St. Joseph) from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. I’ve picked the place for a number of reasons: a central location near parking and transit, friendly staff, free wifi, power outlets aplenty, recommendations from friends and a glowing review from Torontoist. If you’re in the neighbourhood, please drop by!
Since I live and work in Toronto, I’ll be holding most of my Coffee and Code days there. However, my job does involve a fair bit of travel, and it’s quite likely that I’ll hold Coffee and Code days in other cities. Some of my coworkers are also thinking about holding their own Coffee and Code days in their own cities as well.
If you’d like to know more about upcoming Coffee and Code days, keep reading this blog, or check out Coffee and Code’s site at coffeeandcode.org.
Categories
“Coffee and Code” Tomorrow!
This article was originally published in Canadian Developer Connection.
I’m announcing the start of Coffee and Code, a regular event where I’ll spend the day working at a wifi-equipped cafe somewhere in Toronto. It’s not just an excuse to get out of the home office, but a way of making myself available to you, to answer your questions about Microsoft, our tools and technology, development and tech in general – or anything else. If you’re in the neighbourhood, I invite you to drop by for a chat!
The first Coffee and Code will take place tomorrow, Friday, February 20th, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Urbana Coffee (1033 Bay Street, a couple of blocks north of Wellesley, at St. Joseph). I’ve picked the place for a number of reasons: a central location near parking and transit, friendly staff, free wifi, power outlets aplenty, recommendations from friends and a glowing review from Torontoist. It looks like a promising place to “set up shop”.
Feel free to drop by! I look forward to talking with you.