Introducing Lightning Talks

The folks I work with are wicked smart.  Go back and read that first sentence again.  This time read it like you are Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting or one of the guys I used to play summer ball with outside of Boston. Fun right?  Anyway, the point is I work with really smart people and I like to push random characters voices into the heads of my readers. 

Tip Number 1: If you have the means, I suggest you plant yourself in a similar environment.  There’s nothing you can do to better for your career than surround yourself with talented, smart people who are passionate about their work.  It doesn’t matter if you are a junior coder, manager-type or CTO.  It’s just good sense.

The problem with my current environment is we are scattered amongst many projects, across many clients and the opportunity to collaborate doesn’t knock very often. We do have a weekly team meeting, but it generally focuses on business/management stuff.  I do find that software development talk often surfaces at lunch but arousing conversation around grass fed vs grain fed cattle is equally as likely.  There really was no venue to really talk shop and harness the collective software development knowledge of my coworkers. 

So, I suggested we start hosting Lightning Talks… The immediate response was very favorable (everybody likes to hear themselves talk, right?) and this week we held a very quick business/management team meeting and then the development staff started our first round of *modified* Lightning Talks.  I emphasis the word “modified” because we broke a rules.  Read on.  We kept things very informal and, in the spirit of lightning talks, intended to host a number of very quick quick 3-10 minute presentations.  Unfortunately, we kind of blew it with the time allotment as my two talks, one on AnkhSVN and the other on Inno Setup, took 5 minutes and then 45 minutes respectively.  All the same, everyone seemed genuinely interested in presentations and the pseudo-lightning talk concept (although you never know because I work not only with really smart people they are also very kind.)  Perhaps the best evidence of the Lightning Talk success was at least one coworker volunteered to do a presentation next week and our internal Wiki already has a section dedicated to presentation notes. 

Tip Number 2: Introduce a similar practice to your workplace.  No matter what you call the meeting, getting coworkers talking about technology is one of the best ways to get introduced to new ideas and sharpen your existing skills. 

Wish us luck on future talks.  Let’s hope my brain doesn’t get too big.