Articles for category: Leadership

May 4, 2015

Greg Thomas

The Last Lecture

If you have never watched the The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch then you need to take some time tonight and watch it.  The video is not only a great message for how to achieve your childhood dreams but to keep achieving them as you get older.  You don’t always get to where you thought you’d be, but there are lots of different paths you can go down to get somewhere, that can be just as rewarding.  And it’s not just about your dreams, but those around you, what you can do to help them.  I’ve watched this video about 3

April 15, 2015

Greg Thomas

What’s in a Title?

Absolutely nothing. Ouch!  That’s going to hurt some people – some might not even be reading this part… or this part for that matter.  But here it is – a job title does not define you, it’s an indication of what you do, but not the complete picture. Brain Surgeon – yup you’re good at that, but I’m sure you do more and maybe it’s not what defines you exactly. Architect, Software Developer, Team Lead, Tech Lead, Director, VP, etc – I’ve been all these things and at the end of it – they are not nearly what defines me

April 5, 2015

Greg Thomas

We don’t need another Hero

Software is a game of late night deployments and early morning patches to fix a “new feature” before it becomes a big problem.  It’s not bad, sometimes it’s lots of fun, the camaraderie built over some take-out while everyone is grinding on the last release trying to fix the last of the team’s bugs or it’s that bright and early design session to lay out the plan for the day and make it happen – not just talk about it… but make it happen… really, really make it happen. Those are the best moments that I remember, when you are working with

March 15, 2015

Greg Thomas

Don’t Forget the Good Kids

I had this experience a few weeks ago where I just had a dredge of a week to work through – Meetings, Status Updates, Presentations, Designs, etc, etc – you name it I did it.  Lots of concurrent projects going on across everything in my life and it literally felt like I was bailing out a boat while water was coming in at an insurmountable rate to what I was bailing. Sound Familiar?   Everyone has these weeks, I’m saying nothing new in this regard.  However, while I was dealing with this maelstrom of tasks and people, this one person

March 6, 2015

Greg Thomas

It’s not going to be easy…

Let’s get started… “I’m not telling you it is going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” Simple enough, less than 20 words, another pretty little quote showing up in your Newsfeed to give you that spark of energy for 30 minutes.  What could you accomplish in those 30 minutes?  What if you kept reading it over and over and over again, would you read it 48 times in a single day so you could have that spark the whole day long?  Would you be willing to stay up that long? I’ve written the second part