Birmingham Digital & DevOps Meetup - 18th June, 2019
Presentation First Outing
This Tuesday was the first formal outing of my “Continuous Learning Dilemma” presentation
and also my first Meetup event.
The venue was The Old Joint Stock in the centre of Birmingham and I was lucky enough to get a lift from colleagues both there and back. Sweet. Only had to carry my Lenovo home-weight-lifting-kit a short distance and I managed to remember my rucksack too instead of the usual chunky and heavy laptop bag.
I was a bit nervous because my presentation could be perceived as telling people about a problem they might not know they have yet. However, it was a good, all-round experience. One I’d be happy to repeat.
Around 60+ people of 115 registered for the event turned out in their own time after work to attend. That’s enthusiasm to learn. Some were even prepared to stand as the room was full. Free food and beer was at hand but I’m sure that wasn’t a factor. 😊
Andy Burgin (@andyburgin), from Sky Betting & Gaming, talked about DevOps Transformation and was quite an act to follow. 30 minutes later it was all over. A few people were kind enough to give me a thumbs-up when I asked how it went. I’m taking that as a green light to proceed with further outings.
Unexpected Bonus
Bumping into a former agile team member who recognised my name on the presenter list and decided to come along was a bonus and it was good to catch up and hear about his successful learning journey from Developer to Architect. I love to see potential in people realised. Go Harshad!
Presentation Slide Deck
For anyone who wishes to download "The Continuous Learning Dilemma" presentation slide deck that I used, it can be found here: Birmingham Meetup Slide Deck - June 2019
The Value Of Social Learning
As part of some research during my last blog post I came across the the 70:20:10 model related to informal learning. This was news to me and really interesting.
The model basically says 70% of our learning comes from experience (hands-on), 20% from social interactions and the remaining 10% from formal training.
Long story short, 90% of our learning is done informally, outside of the classroom. This implies that Meetup events can potentially meet more of our learning needs than the classroom. Whoa!
What happened at the Meetup?
I learnt some stuff, others did too. That’s what happened. Everyone was a winner.
Andy Burgin (@andyburgin) described two patterns in detail that Sky use to innovate new products as well as proclaiming the virtues of the Spotify organisational approach of Squads and Tribes which they also employ.
Paul Jacques (@psjacques) described organisational culture and the modern challenges of attracting and retaining talent. There was much food for thought here for those responsible for feeding the corporate talent machine. He made a good point by ending on the phrase "Think again."
I got some more public speaking experience and some valuable feedback on my presentation style from a fellow speaker which was much appreciated and will be taken to heart.
I also gained some confidence that I have pitched my subject and material at the right level – further outings will tell. A Twitter comment from @rgee0 said the delivery “felt like counselling” but in a positive way. (The first counselling session is always free. 😊)
In the further conversations that followed the presentations I heard about the “Dunning-Kruger Effect”, a big ticket item for me and now on my research stack, along with a few product names mentioned in the presentations to look up that I’d not heard of before.
I’ve started a habit of looking stuff up so I potentially don’t get caught out in conversations with customers if I can help it. I write the names in my learning diary and then a description when I eventually find out what they are. Doing this helps me move the detail into longer term memory for better recall - well that's the theory anyway.
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Tim Simpson
18th June, 2019
#LifeAtCapgemini