Luck versus Opportunity

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Seneca (Roman philosopher). Yesterday, I finally pulled the trigger on transferring the blog from Godaddy to PowerVPS.  I saw an opportunity to transfer my blog over to cloud hosting versus just sitting on a shared drive.  My blog now joins my other properties, PM Prep Flashcards and PDU Library. In the days leading up to the transfer, I made sure I had my recent backups (both files and databases).  Note that my app developers are distributed and using Subversion so source code has always been safe. The only thing at risk was my blog and I have multiple copies in multiple locations.  If you're reading this, it means we're running on new hardware and a new network.  For the most part, the transfer went well.    There never seems to be a good time to transfer a domain and when you have a blog running on Wordpress, you also have to be prepared for a few hiccups.  If you're lucky, you don't run into any issues.

Well, the site is about 95% up.  Because I still need to configure email, related to the domain, I don't have the contact form displayed.  I also have a few back-end issues, each related to server configuration.  None are a big deal and I think the site will be 100% by the end of the day.  Now if only the DNS would propagate the change in IP faster.

I look forward the future, now that this one monkey is off my back.  I'm not 100% rid of Godaddy but I learned some lessons from this domain transfer.

A Critical Path Facelift

After having the same look on my website for over 2 years, I think it's time for a facelift.  So, if you come to the site within the next week and notice things looking a little different, don't fret!  In addition to the frontend changes, I plan to move the site over to PowerVPS (Virtacore Systems), who hosts my other sites.  So, grab yourself a fresh cup of coffee (or tea) and continue enjoying my rants and insights. If you think the graphic above looks a little like me drawing a Critical Path, you should go to Pictofigo and check out their other offerings.  Thank you again to Pictofigo for doing such an awesome job!

Regards,

Derek

Know who you are and what you represent

The other day I met Scott Simko, who I "knew" through This Week In Startups and Thomas Kiblin, CEO and Founder of Virtacore.  I met them as the founder of HueCubed, a web startup company offering a flashcard engine that we plan to scale like Weblogs, Inc. or Stackoverflow. (Create a niche product and then scale it in other vertical markets)  Our flagship product, PMPrep Flashcards, was released in March and I wanted to meet the people who are hosting our product(s). Up to this point, I have introduced myself as Derek Huether, Project Management Professional® and adviser.  But these people don't know me as that.  They were meeting me as Derek Huether, entrepreneur and founder of a web startup.  As a result, I stumbled when it was time to introduce myself.  Don't make this mistake!

If you wear multiple hats in your organization, you may need to know who you are to different stakeholders.  Is your specialty in Waterfall, Agile, or Kanban?  Take a moment and imagine you are being introduced to someone.  What are you going to say?  This is part personal branding and part stakeholder management.  What I needed was a solid 30 second elevator pitch.  What's the takeaway from this post? Know who you are and what you represent.  It may be different, based on the company you keep.

New Show Announced on ThisWeekIn Network #TWiCCourtesy

You heard it here first, the ThisWeekIn Network is announcing its latest show titled This Week in Common Courtesy.  In this week's episode, Derek Huether expounds upon the topic of common courtesy.

Guest 1:

Our first guest is none other than TWiVC host, Mark Suster. Mark had quite a bit to say about the right way to cancel a meeting.  I certainly agree with his frustrations.

Thank you Mark for the short but to-the-point reply.

Guest 2:

After a (Generation Y) Mahalo employee gave his resignation notice via email, CEO of Mahalo and TWiST Host Jason Calacanis, calmly explained the value employees provide, just by showing up for work.  He went on to provide valuable insights to help some Generation Y understand their place in the world and what they deserve.

After this very instructional message, you'd think members of Generation Y would have had the common courtesy of listening.  A few days later, I reported an average performance rating for a (GenY) subordinate.  She then argued with me about not giving her a perfect 10.  When push comes to shove, I’m the one doing the assessment.  Have the common courtesy of respecting that and ask how to excel in your position, not just show up.  Jason's supporting comment to me was:

Jason, though she is no longer with our organization, I will make sure she gets her trophy.

That's all the time we have for this week.

I would like to thank @PowerVPS We're powered by the cloud

& @Jason We are entertained!

Don't forget to thank our sponsors and use the hashtag #TWiCCoutesy