How I started Blogging

It was nearly two years back, in February 2011, I was working on a SharePoint project. We had a special member in our team, who was very good with SQL but knew very little about SharePoint. As he was new to the project I had to work with him most of the time to transfer the knowledge about the domain and technology. When I explain the things, specially about technical, sometimes he pause me and asked few minutes to take screen shots and update the things in a particular web page. I just let him do his task and waited. Since I didn't have started blogging I didn't realize that he was drafting a blog post with the content we were discussing.

After few days he asked me "Do you know what am I doing?”. I said "No". Then he explained... I'm drafting major points to a blog post. Do you know why I'm doing this? I said no… without even thinking. Because I wanted to know his answer. These are few points which may help you to understand why blogging is important.

• If we think about this SharePoint project, we have lots of configurations and customizations. We do it today but after few days we probably forget it. If I note it somewhere I can find it easily later when I want it.
• You can keep a note book and write those notes. But surely it will misplace after some time. You can keep documents or note in your computer, but those are also not permanent. But if you write them in a blog it will be there and you can access from everywhere if you have internet.
• In this IT world not only you who meet the same issue you met. So if you publish the answer found by you in the internet then it will help others to make their job easier.
• Also you can improve your written skills.
• When you get matured with writing posts, you might write the most useful and popular things and you will be followed by many people in the industry. It will help you to be in touch with the people.

Yeh...Everything was true. I wanted to try blogging. I created a blog address for me and was thinking what to write. Spending lot of time… Finally, I completed the 1st blog post. Wow what a feeling. You should experience it if you haven't felt it yet. Not only for the 1st post but for the every post I write, I get so motivated, that feeling is not easy to describe but everyone should feel by themselves.

p.s. Big Thank should goes to Gogula (Who was mentioned above) for motivating me to start blogging.

Forget the Weaknesses, Use your Strengths to find Opportunities.

It's true everybody has ups and downs in their career. I had few identified weaknesses on myself with regard to the career. I wanted to discuss them with some one having more experiences in their career than me and who can guide me to overcome them.

 

Luckily I met Kosala after a long time and got a chance to discuss about the weaknesses I mentioned above. This is not actually to tell what were the problems I discussed or the solutions he gave. But to highlight something I found very important when we talk.

Me:       I feel I'm not good at these kind of things in my career, Do you have any advices to improve myself?

Kosala: Why you are thinking too much on your negative things?

Me:       When I find the solutions I can improve myself.

Kosala:  Have you ever thought about your strengths?

Me:       hmm...No.

Kosala: See... You should have so many strengths with you, but even you haven't identify them yet. If you don't want to identify your strengths, who else will? It's sure that there will be people who will point at you on the things you are not good at. See now you also have joined with them.

            Before think about your negative points, just start to identify your strengths. Thinking about negatives will put you down. So find your strengths and try to find opportunities from them.

Later you can think about the things you want to improve and then you can work on it. Otherwise you are worrying about the things you don't have while you are having lot of things to be happy. You can use them to go higher in your career.

 Yes... It's true. What is the point of worrying about the things which we don't have while we are having lot to value?

Always be Smart with your answers

Suddenly your boss might give some ideas to a project and ask you how many days will it take to implement.  At the moment you hear the words "How many days" you may tend to give your answer with a number. In that case you will guess a number and give him a answer. But later you and your boss may realize that the estimation was wrong.

In most cases it goes wrong since you just guess and answered. Both you and your boss knows that giving even a rough estimation for a software project is not easy without going deep to the scenario.

Then why did you give exact answer? Since your boss asked the question with the phrase "How many days". But you don't need to answer this question by a number as he asked. Be smart and share the reality that you want to study the scenario and take your time to give correct answer.

You don't need to give exact answer for most of the questions asked by you in your life. Just take your time and give smart answers.

A Big Fear Has Gone.....

Presentations and Public Speaking brought me a big fear and I have mentioned about it in my last post.

Finally I did my first Technical presentation at my office (Exilesoft) on 20th January 2012. The Topic was "Introduction to Design Patterns". I'm not going to write technical stuff about the topic. The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas and experiences of my career life.

After the presentation I saw this on tweeter which motivated me to go further.

shiranginige Shiran Ginige

It's amazing hw you are nt bored about design patterns no matter how many times you hear of them. Good session again on the topic @exilesoft

But what would happen if I get some bad comments at my 1st presentation? Most probably I would not go to do any other presentations. 

when thinking of this....

I found a way to help others. Never discourage your colleagues, but show them how they can improve.

Things I can never do...

There are things in our lives which we think we can never do. I had a same kind of thought in my career. It's doing presentations. Actually it was a fear to me. In my 5+ years career life I haven't done any presentation. Management asked me to do presentations several times and forced me to do. Than that they have set up dates as well. But I was so scared and skipped them always.

But... The most important thing is I wanted to do presentations.

The first reason I felt scared of presentations was my English knowledge. I felt I might get stuck or sometimes I might forget correct words when I do presentations.

Talking in front of a crowd was also a challenge, but I am not too much scared about it.

Nearly one year back I joined a new company I was given a project to continue by myself only. Nearly after two months I was asked to do a code walk through to the client. There were no chances to skip it or to say No. I had to do it. I practiced entire weekend and did it. Yes it went well. I got the guts that I won't stuck with English language any more.

Two three months later, Company organized Speech Craft program for us. It was so much helpful for me to improve myself to talk in front of the audience. I did several speeches and also I had to do an impromptu speech at the last session called "Grand Finale". Actually it was a grand finale. I passed that challenge too.

Again I had to do a 10 min presentation about my project in front of entire company. I was scared but I used to think like this, if I gave impromptu speech at speech craft program why I'm afraid to talk what I've already practiced. Yes actually, I did it well.

Finally it’s again a big time. First technical presentation of my entire career life.... it's tomorrow... "Introduction to Design Patterns". Hope it will be successful.

I fell like this…..

If you  have something that you think can be never done, but still if you want, one day you can do it.