Mentorship, Sharpening the Saw, and Technical Advocates

Lately I've been spending time reading Scott Hanselman's blog.  A few of his posts have really made me rethink how I look at leadership in general.  Here's a few links to some of my favorite posts:


Scaling Mentorship
I love this article because it focuses on a few things I care about most: activation, being a facilitator, and modeling feedback mentorships.  He discusses creating a board of directors for your life with people you can really confide but still able to see the big picture.  As a manager and advocate for others, this is one of the primary principles I live by and share.  He also promotes an interesting idea I'm currently pushing for: host mentorship meals.  The intent is a dinner where everything is FrieNDA, and how you can lend your privilege to help others.

Sharpening the Saw for Developers
This article is more a list of ways to engage your team and promote continuous learning.  A few of my favorites:

• Set aside time at work to read technical books / train
• Host technical brownbags
• Homework (I love finding a great book to help the team and delegate the book to a team member to learn and share findings for their growth and the team) 
• An interesting idea is an offsite Company Code Camp.  As a side note, 1-800 Contacts does a Live for the Impossible Day (or two) where everyone is working on something important to them for 24-48 hours.  Some amazing wins have come from these powerful innovation days.

11 Essential Characteristics for Being a Good Technical Advocate or Interviewer
Something I've always thought about was doing a soft-skills presentation on what I've learned over 20 years in the industry.  Starting at 17, I've learned a lot about tech, management, leadership, and learning how to advocate and lend privilege to others.  This article speaks to me because I love the different perceptions of a good presenter or ways to do a podcast.