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Why I wrote "Making it Big in Software: Get the job. Work the org. Become great."

 
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In another thread Anant Kamat asked: "I just wanted to ask your inspiration behind the book."

In 1991, I was a fourth-year electrical engineering student at Queen’s University, trying to finish up my degree and get a job. Every Friday afternoon the electrical engineering school invited a guest speaker to inspire and enlighten our young, impressionable minds. These talks covered a wide range of technological topics; we discussed everything from high voltage transmission lines to CMOS VLSI circuit design. I confess that most of these sessions were less than inspirational for me. One day, a guest speaker arrived with a radically different message. He spoke to us about “life in the real world” and what we could expect after we graduated. I was riveted. Most of my classmates, like me, were in the dark about what our lives might be like after graduation.

I decided then that if I ever could, I would return the professional courtesy and volunteer to speak to university students. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I began a series of career talks at leading universities. The lecture notes from my talks, often delivered to capacity-filled auditoriums, became the basis for this book. As I became a manager, senior manager and technical architect it became obvious to me that even at the professional level employees were struggling to absorb and integrate the professional strategies and behaviors they needed to advance. I found myself constantly coaching my staff. I made a point of reading the latest books around software engineering, software development lifecycle, professional development and effective organizational behavior and observing the people I most admired to see how they dealt with challenging situations.

Some of the ideas are my own, but many are culled from the leading business thinkers and software development evangelists of the past three decades. So it has been a long road, and the writing was largely motivated by a desire to give something back to the community.

Hopefully, this book succeeds in providing you what school and daily work life generally cannot: the tools with which to make it BIG.


Sam
 
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Hello Sam, thanks for stopping by this week. Do you have any future book related proejcts in mind?
 
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I am actually very impressed. Most people decide to "give back" much later in their career. To decide to do so at the start of the career is very altruistic.

Henry
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
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