Brazen Careerist
Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist has been one of my favorite blogs to read of late (hmm, I wonder why :p). She writes about work and life (is there a difference these days?) and the things she has to say resonates well with me; it’s like she’s been in my shoes! Her posts date all the way back to 2001 and there’s a tonne of good stuff to read even from the earlier posts. Here are some of her articles I recently read and enjoyed:
- 4 ways to make more time
- Be honest with yourself and you’ll get more done
- Networking for a new generation: Be authentic
- Specialist careers are the key to freedom
- Breaking the Perfection Habit (good read)
She also recently published a book called Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. Guy Kawasaki had this to say about the book:
“Take everything you think you ‘know’ about career strategies, throw them away, and read this book because the rules have changed. ‘Brazen,’ ‘counter-intuitive,’ and ‘radical’ are the best three descriptions of Trunk’s work. Life is too short to be stuck in a rat hole…”
Interesting read, very informative especially about the ‘4 ways to make more time’. Hey why don’t you blog on how to go about setting up your own website? Registering domain, all the way to getting your own site up and running. Not too sure if it’s an interesting topic to write about, but I know i’d be interested
Regarding “Breaking the Perfection Habit”, Penelope Trunk says that “Believe it or not, in most cases 70 percent perfect is fine for what we do”. However this might not apply to software development. Read Joel Spolsky’s “A game of inches” (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/07.html) on how extreme attention to detail is an absolute requirement for building great software.
But I guess it depends on the context. If you wait until 100% completion you’ll never ship anything. So you get 70% out of the door and shift the rest to the next version.