Read Fiction, Be a Better Leader
One of my favorite things about the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast [http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/] is the exceptionally diverse list of topics they cover each week. June 20th's IdeaCast was titled Read Fiction and Be a Better Leader [http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2013/06/read-fiction-and-be-a-better-l.html]
Succeeding and Not Failing
If asked, I would say that I devote a great portion of my life trying to succeed at something. However, when I try to be a little more introspective, I realize that most of the time I think I spend trying to succeed I actually spend trying not to fail.
Your Project Needs a Theme
Every day, you chug away on your project (software, widgets, budgets, whatever) making incremental progress towards your final goal. One day something happens that you don't expect, in the biz we call this a production defect. Because of that, you have to pull valuable resources away from getting
Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel
Let's say we want to use RestSharp [http://restsharp.org/] to call an API method in an Azure-hosted environment over HTTPS. var client = new RestClient("https://randomqaenvironment.cloudapp.net"); var request = new RestRequest("resource/{id}", Method.POST); request.AddUrlSegment("id", 123); client.
Fixed WCF Azure Service Bus: Access is denied Exception
> Access is denied. Really?! Could you be a little more explicit? The Background I ran into this error recently when trying to deploy an application at a client. We ended up spending way too much time figuring out the root cause of this exception due to the sheer lack
The Trust Equation
> You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. -Dale Carnegie I was reading The Trusted Advisor [http://www.amazon.com/The-Trusted-Advisor-David-Maister/dp/0743212347/] over the weekend based on
Take the Pessimist's View
As my career has progressed, I have noticed that my best work comes from when I constantly step back and take a pessimist's view of the solution. Through this lens I am able to find potential pitfalls that I otherwise would have missed. I remember a recent brainstorming
Sync to Paper
Sometimes I find myself overwhelmed by the massive amount of digital tools I have at my disposal to solve a particular problem. What was originally meant to be a time-saving tool-set can quickly dissolve into a morass of confusion and frustration. When the tools themselves become a hindrance to you
Help Your Team Succeed By Providing Context, Tools, and Opportunities
In order for your team to succeed, they must be provided with the proper context, tools, and opportunities. Neglecting any one of these three items will stack the odds against your team and keep them from reaching their full potential. Context First, context. Your team needs to be kept in
Agree Now to Disagree Later
When you find yourself disagreeing with someone, you might find you get what you want more often if you focus on what you can agree on first and save what you don't agree on for later in the conversation. Very few arguments occur where both parties take completely