Reading “Being Geek” by Michael Loop
So sometimes when I am reading a book I write a little review of it and summarise the information. For some of the books I'm reading they're just not relevant to the other blogs and page I write so, well they might end up dumped here for the sake of having some where to put them. Hopefully they will be relevant to what I am doing with my life and my career.
Okay so I massively recommend Being Geek by Michael Loop to anyone in the IT field who isn't yet managing a massive team and it's pretty good if you're managing a team too. It's like the career guide for devs. It starts before education and ends after management.
It touches on the academic vs vocational training routes debate, but in its attempt to cover everything it then can't really cover things as thoroughly as possible and it attempts to focus on timeless wisdom rather than current technologies.
The author really contributed a lot to my soft skills. I have always felt that I need to work the most on them. I think what I love most about it is that is classifies certain personalities you come across in the field. For example you might have someone who acts a certain way in how they might control a meeting. For someone like me that seems helpful but in my experience no-one ever likes being put in a box and people are so varied that they often spill out of any box you try to classify them into. However the process of thinking about all these different types of people makes you more aware that your audience isn't necessarily homogenous and often does not reflect you. One issue my brain struggles with.
The book gives you strategies for deal with each type of person. Having a strategy is important. Often it means when you question whether you acted correctly you can at least confirm your actions were the most professional thing possible in the given scenario. Even if it wasn't successful, you couldn't be expected to do better than that. This means you can continue with your day without over thinking it.
Sometimes I think the book is a little bit like telling a Geek how to use charm, intimidation and persuasion in an RPG game. It gives them the levels to try to pull. Okay it's not perfect. Nothing is perfect, for the highly complicated world we live in, but it gives us the tools we need to start engaging with management and peers and that is what ends up resulting in great people skills!
I must admit I did slightly fall in love with the author when he spent most of a chapter talking about the social deduction game Werewolf. My favourite game is a very similar one called Avalaon : the Resistance. It is interesting how this lends the idea that we are of the same tribe and there is instant respect and liking on something so small and insignificant. But often so many developers are naturally of the same tribe.
Unfortunately for any readers, I have decided not to include my summaries of the content of the book to avoid reducing sales. Please go ahead and buy this book if you're in a similar place to me or my juniors in a dev career.
Graeme