NEJUG: Career 2.0, JFugue and Log4JFugue

The NEJUG (New England Java Users Group) event last night featured not one but three presentations.

The headliner was Jared Richardson with his presentation "Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life". Prior to that were two short presentations: David Koelle introducing JFugue, an API for generating music with little code; and Brian Tarbox demonstrating Log4JFugue, an entertaining intersection of Log4J and JFugue.

Jared had some good observations about types of workers (Jellyfish and Sharks), and some sensible advice for being proactive with your career (Learn and Share).

In Jared's parlance, a Jellyfish is someone who does what his job requires, what his boss needs, but doesn't do more than that; the career of a Jellyfish drifts on the currents of work assignments. His best example was a friend who wouldn't learn anything new if he wasn't being paid to do it (nice work if you can get it, but you're not likely to get that often). At the other extreme, a Shark regularly seeks out new opportunities, and learning proactively so as to be ready for those opportunities.

Grossly simplified, Jared had these recommendations:
  • Learn something, such as the LOTY (Language Of The Year) or the TOTY (Technology Of The Year)
  • Share what you learn: Blog, Speak, Write Articles, etc.
  • Set measurable goals: short term goals (e.g. write 1 page today) that help you take steps to meet your long term goals (write that book!)
Jared has posted a video of this presentation at http://qik.com/video/1009098.

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